Abstract
This paper challenges and complements the view, widely held in sociological
labor studies, that incomplete proletarianization weakens labor’s
bargaining power in the city by allowing capital to externalize the costs of
labor reproduction to the countryside. The authors argue instead that the
preservation of migrant workers’ links to the rural economy plus rural
development measures can, under certain circumstances, empower labor by
increasing their marketplace bargaining power. Beginning with the puzzle of
migrant labor shortages in China, and based on national data and a case
study, the authors show that access to land and pro-rural state policies in
the first decade of the twenty-first century together stimulated rural
development in hinterland China and created more employment opportunities in
agricultural and local nonfarm sectors. As a consequence, rural (migrant)
laborers in China were able to rely on rural employment and choose not to
participate in labor migration, thus contributing to the labor shortage and
pressing employers in the city to increase wage rates and improve working
and living conditions.

Studies in Comparative International DevelopmentMarch 2013, Volume 48, Issue
1, pp 81-111

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12116-012-9124-5?LI=true