High-technology employment growth in China: geographic disparities in economic structure and sectoral performance

This paper examines the geography of high-technology industry growth in China through the shift-share analysis of relevant employment data from 2004 to 2014. To overcome the shortcomings identified in previous shift-share-based research, a new modified analytical technique was employed. The results unexpectedly show that China’s four metropolitan areas with special administrative status (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing) no longer play a leading role in driving high-tech employment growth. Moreover, the more sparsely populated regions of Xinjiang, Tibet, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, and Hainan show the most favorable high-tech employment growth. Despite possessing an incomplete array of major industrial sectors, these provincial areas and autonomous regions are specializing in fast-growing industrial sectors, consequently yielding more significant high-tech employment growth. Thus, according to our results, specialization favors high-tech employment growth. Among other findings that diverge with earlier research on China and with contemporary assumptions about the metropolitan location of most high-tech growth, our research identifies a number of regional growth corridors tied to specific high-tech sectors as well as an inverse geographic trend in which high-tech employment growth decreases from the far less urbanized western regions to the more urbanized east. This paper concludes with several policy recommendations and suggested areas for future research.