（School of Social and Behavioral Sciences,Nanjing University）
Abstract: Previous studies have found that job change can significantly increase migrant workers’wage earnings. Based on the 2014 survey data from thirteen cities in seven provinces and Night-time Lights Data, this paper examines the causality between job change and wage growth of migrant workers. The results by ordinary least squares (OLS) and fuzzy regression discontinuity (FRD) show that the wage growth of migrant workers through job change actually reflects the fact that the migrant workers transfer to a better company or move to a better city. Company size and economic growth of the city are two important factors affecting the wage increase of migrant workers. However, there exists the group heterogeneity. On the one hand, company size can only significantly increase the wages of the migratory job changers, while it has little effect on the local job changers’ . For the migratory job changers, the transfer from a smaller company to a larger one may mean a forty percent increase in their wages. On the other hand, the Economic growth of the cities can bring about significant increases in the wages of the migratory job changers as well as the local ones. It is indicated that the move to a more prosperous city yields a 1.3 times higher rise in wage than a move to a less developed city, which, therefore, establishes the economic development of a city as a more common factor determining the migrant workers’wage growth.These findings can reasonably serve as important guides for migrant workers in their work and migration in the new economic period.
Key Words: Migrant Worker；Job Change; Wage Growth; Labour Market