The Effect and Mechanism of Labor Mobility on the Subjective Well‐Being of Urban Native Labor: Empirical Evidence From China

ABSTRACT Existing research on the impact of labor mobility on the welfare of urban native labor has inconsistent findings due to differences in the objective measures of welfare and the relatively homogeneous scale of migration within the samples. We focus on subjective well‐being (SWB) as a comprehensive measure of welfare and select China, characterized by significant disparities in labor mobility across cities, as the sample for a study grounded in externality theory. Empirical results derived from microdata of the 2016 China Labor—force Dynamics Survey and corresponding annual city data show that: (1) The relationship between labor force inflow and the SWB of urban native labor in the host city is significantly a U‐shaped curve. When the inflow of labor reaches 0.44 times the size of the urban native labor, the SWB of the latter will reach its lowest point. (2) The labor force outflow has no significant effect on the SWB of urban native labor who stayed behind in the origin city. (3) Costs of living, employment opportunities, and working hours play a mediating role in the relationship between labor inflow and the SWB of urban native labor in the host city.