Labor Mobility and Urban Economic Resilience: A Review of Theoretical Mechanisms and Evolutionary Paths

Abstract

In China, the "semi-urbanization" status workers exhibits the dual characteristic of high mobility and low institutional embeddedness. While this supports economic growth under normal conditions, it becomes a source of urban economic vulnerability during periods of shock. From the core perspective of labor embeddedness, this paper is based on comprehensive consideration of rural-to-urban, inter-city, and international mobility, systematically examines how labor mobility affects urban economic resilience via three pathways: scale effects, structural effects, and institutional effects, while introducing city types as examples. The study finds that the scale effects are double-edged: The mobile labor depends on institutional embeddedness for locking in pose risks. Otherwise, it rapidly outflow and bring about risk during shocks. Structural effects depend on the dynamic coupling of skill-industry matching. Lastly, institutional effects such as household registration, social security, housing, and education for accompanying children determine the level of embeddedness. This, in turn, decides whether mobility could enhancing resilience while improving urban economic efficiency.