ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1660023
This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Outcomes: The Role of Social Security Systems in Improving Residents' Health Welfare, Volume IIView all 11 articles
Medical Insurance Integration Improves Migrant Workers' Employment Quality: Evidence from China's URRMI Reform
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China
- 2China Life Insurance Company Limited Shandong Branch, Jinan, China
- 3Shandong Jiaotong University, Jinan, China
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This study employs a staggered difference-in-differences approach combined with propensity score matching to evaluate the impact of the Urban-Rural Resident Medical Insurance (URRMI) integration on the employment quality of ruralurban migrant workers. Drawing on data from the 2014-2020 waves of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), the analysis constructs a multidimensional employment quality index encompassing wage income, social protection, job stability, and working hours. Mediation analysis identifies two key transmission channels: reduced out-ofpocket medical expenses and improved health status. The empirical results show that URRMI significantly enhances employment quality, with particularly notable improvements in wages, social protection coverage, and employment stability. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that the policy effects are more pronounced among older workers, in eastern provinces, and within the primary and secondary sectors. These findings contribute new empirical evidence on the labor market implications of social insurance reform and provide timely policy insights to support the transformation of rural migrant workers into "new urban citizens" in the context of China's inclusive urbanization agenda.
Keywords: Urban -Rural Resident Medical Insurance (URRMI), employment quality, migrant workers, mediation mechanism, Social protection, health insurance
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yixin, Wenguang, Xinran and Yujuan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yu Wenguang, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China
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