关键词: 劳动投入, 劳动质量, 行业来源, 维度来源

Abstract: This paper uses labor data constructed from four dimensions—industry, gender, age, and education based on hours worked to measure the improvement of labor quality in China during 1978—2018 from the industry level, and explores the impacts of adopting the numbers employed to measure labor input in existing research on the results of industry-level labor quality. From 1978 to 2018, China’s overall labor quality improvement has an average annual change rate of 2.14%, and its contribution to labor input shows a growing trend. Since 2008, labor quality has exceeded the growth rate of labor input. All industries have achieved different degrees of improvement in labor quality, and the improvement in labor quality in the service industry is even more pronounced. Using numbers employed to measure labor input overestimates the improvement in labor quality in the industrial sector, but drastically underestimates the improvement in labor quality in the non-industrial sectors, especially the service industry, and ultimately underestimates the improvement in labor quality of China’s overall economy. The industry dimension is the main source of labor quality improvement in China, but its importance has been replaced by the education dimension since 2008. The age dimension has played a certain role in promoting the improvement of China’s overall labor quality while its changes have shown a certain downward trend. Based on research findings, we suggest that the government should adhere to the integration of urban and rural development and smooth the flow of factors of production between urban and rural areas, thoroughly implement the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and continue to increase investment in education, give full play to the decisive role of the market in allocating resources, continue to work to reduce barriers that impede the flow of labor across industries and encourage the labor force to flow by following the law of the market.

Key words: Labor Input, Labor Quality, Industry Source, Dimension Source