Do High-Speed Rail Networks Promote Coupling Coordination between Employment and Industry Output? A Study Based on Evidence from China

The sustainable development of China’s economy requires better allocation of labor across regions and sectors in the face of the vanishing of demographic dividends. Based on the panel data of 276 cities from 2007 to 2019, this study explores the influence of China’s high-speed rail network on the coupling coordination level between employment and output in different industries. This paper has also tested the dynamics of this effect with four different time periods. The heterogeneity of levels of city clusters is also investigated by dividing all the city samples into four groups according to the levels of city clusters, namely first tier, second tier, third tier, and non-cluster. The following conclusions are drawn. First, a high-speed rail network only positively influences the employment–output coupling coordination level of the tertiary industry while having a negative effect on the other two. Second, the higher the level of city cluster that one city has, the greater the impact of the high-speed rail. Third, the high-speed rail network’s positive effect on the secondary industry tends to become negative in the longer term, while the positive impact on the tertiary industry lasts. This study provides a reference for making full use of transport infrastructures to promote the reasonable distribution of labor resources.