Can both environmental improvement and employment stabilization be achieved?Based on the bounded target of environmental quality
Environmental protection is an important driver of high-quality development.Un-der the background of China's economy entering the new normal status and economic downturn,the risk of unemployment has been exacerbated.Can the win-win goal of both environmental improvement and employment stabilization be realized during pollution treatment?Based on the data of China Labor Dynamic Survey 2018,the panel data of employment adjustment from 2014 to 2018 is constructed.This paper examines the effect of a bounded target of PM2.5 on em-ployment adjustment by adopting a difference-in-difference method.The results show that:The bounded target of PM2.5 significantly inhibited the probability of the labor force participating in the work.Specifically,with the increase of the bounded target,the probability of working labor losing their original positions will increase significantly,while the probability of re-employment of unemployed labor may decrease.Besides,the higher bounded target will lead to the outflow of labor.However,the probability of the workforce changing jobs has not been affected signifi-cantly.Various kinds of robustness tests support these conclusions.Meanwhile,the employment adjustment is heterogeneous based on region and individual.The degree of environmental regula-tion before the promulgation of the plan and optimization of the industrial structure will cushion this shock to some extent.The target has a greater influence on those working in manufacturing or construction and those with low education.Further mechanism test shows that the number of enterprises decreases,the production scale shrinks,and the foreign direct investment declines in regions with higher target,which further adversely affects the employment.Moreover,these effects have obvious heterogeneity of region.This study provides an empirical basis for China to balance the relationship between environment and employment in the process of high-quality development.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
