Can Insurance Integration Influence Labor Migration? Evidence from China’s Urban-Rural Resident Medical Insurance Reform

Abstract

This paper introduces China’s Urban-Rural Resident Medical Insurance (URRMI) Reform to examine whether health insurance integration has an impact on labor migration, using data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS). We find that the insurance integration drives the relatively high probability, for participants of the URRMI, to migrate from rural to urban workplaces. The positive effects are significant among certain cohorts: the young workers and the middle-aged, workers in Eastern China and Western China, and workers with efforts. In addition, the URRMI provides adequate medical services and decreases out-of-pocket medical expenditure for rural-urban migrant workers.