Volume 2,Issue 3
Environmental Regulation and Structural Employment Imbalances
As China pursues the goal of “dual-carbon” together with implementing an employment-first strategy, labor reallocation across industries has become a key structural challenge and tendency. Using panel data from 31 Chinese provinces during 2008–2020, this study measures structural employment imbalance by constructing the Lilien index and testing environmental regulation through environmental keyword frequency in provincial government reports. The results show that lagged environmental regulation significantly reduces the Lilien index. The finding highlights the positive conditional employment effects of green transition and provides theoretical guidance for coordinating carbon reduction with employment stability.
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