ABSTRACT
Since the reform and opening up, China’s regional economic development has shown significant differences that further form the three large “eastern, central and western” economic zones. The areas with high level of economic development are mainly concentrated in the southeast coastal regions, while those with a low level of economic development are mainly concentrated in the western regions, and the central regions are between the two. With regional economic development, rural labor force transfer also shows the higher transfer degree in the eastern coastal areas than the central and eastern regions. The areas with a high degree of rural labor transfer are mainly concentrated in southeast coastal areas and a few of the central regions. The areas with a low degree of rural labor transfer are mainly concentrated in the central and eastern regions. Since 2004, the annual Top Document of the government always puts emphasis on the Three Rural Issues. It is put forward that based on “farmers’ income growth” as a starting point, the final solving of Three Rural Issues and the socialist new rural construction cannot be realized without the smooth transfer of rural surplus labor (Cheng, 2007). At present, the domestic research on rural labor force transfer is mainly focused on the role and impact of rural labor force transfer on economic growth, regional dierences, rural economy
and rural development (Zhang, 2013; Jia, 2012; Zhou, 2006; Yang, 2011), as well as the economic eect of rural labor transfer and other influencing factors (Guo, 2007; Liu, 2011). However, domestic research is insucient on the role and influence of economic development on rural labor transfer, but only on the empirical analysis of panel data in 17 cities of Shandong Province (Zhang, 2011) and the national economic growth at the provincial level, industrial structure and rural labor transfer (Cheng, 2007). At the same time, the related research is all based on the traditional OLS regression analysis, but little on county level and with little considering the spatial eect. At present, the interregional correlated influence of economic and social development is more and more significant. The county economy is considered to be the basic regional economy unit in the national economy. It is more representative and typical to study the impacts of regional economic development on rural labor force transfer considering the spatial eect based on a more micro-county level. Therefore, combined with the shortage of the existing research, based on spatial econometric analysis, the national statistics in 2258 counties in 2010 are used to analyze the degree of influence of regional economic development on rural labor transfer from the perspectives of national county level and the eastern, central and western county level. Research results play an important role in accurately
grasping the degrees of influence of regional economic development in national level and the eastern, central and western county level on rural labor transfer. In the meantime, it also can guide the direction of county economic coordinated development with the vital significance of achieving the scientific, reasonable and eective national rural labor force transfer.
