Shortage of Labor Force in China- the Lewis Turning Point or the Trough of Easterlin Demographic Swings?

This paper makes a new interpretation of “migrant worker shortage” in China from a unique perspective of demographic swings. The demographic swings have caused dramatic structural changes of working-age population: on the one hand, working-age population is keeping ageing gradually and the proportion of the younger workers is declining, while the employers insist employing migrant workers that are both young and vigorous. On the other hand, the number of workers newly entering into the labor market is declining every year, which undermines the company’s paths for annual turnover of workers. What is more, the higher education creates the first profession division, the expansion of which results in the decline proportion of manual workers in the young workers that has already been shrinking. Therefore, the shortage of migrant workers is not a sign of the Lewis turning point which is described as the decreasing migration flows from rural areas to urban due to the vanishing of the surplus labor force in rural areas, but an issue associated with the overall reduction in size of young manual-worker population caused by demographic swings and the enlarging enrollment of university. It’s a vivid representation of Easterlin’s point of view: the fluctuation of population exerts a great influence on the economic and social development.