{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T05:00:06Z","timestamp":1790312406205,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":41,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790294400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>As an institutional component of labor costs, social insurance contributions (SIC) directly shape firms\u2019 employment decisions.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Using data from China\u2019s A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2019, and exploiting the implementation of the social insurance law (SIL) of China in 2011 as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper investigates the impact of social insurance contributions on corporate labor employment decisions and the underlying mechanisms.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The results show that an increase in social insurance contributions significantly reduces the scale of corporate labor employment. An analysis of the cost-shifting effect reveals that, compared with reducing wages, firms are more likely to reduce employment to alleviate the burden of social insurance contributions. Mechanism analysis indicates that higher social insurance contributions reduce labor employment through three channels: tightening liquidity constraints, reducing production scale, and increasing capital input. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the nega-tive effect of increased social insurance contributions on labor employment is more pronounced among firms with severe financing constraints and those with larger pre-existing labor employment scales.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Our findings deepen the understanding of the labor\u2011market consequences of social security policies and provide empirical evidence for balancing social security obligations and stable corporate employment.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1917557","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T04:27:33Z","timestamp":1790310453000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Navigating climate uncertainty: employment effects of social security contributions in China"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Feifei","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Shandong Youth University of Political Science","place":["Jinan, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yadong","family":"Cui","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Insurance, Shandong University of Finance and Economics","place":["Jinan, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yongsheng","family":"Ji","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Vocational Education, Shandong Youth University Of Political Science","place":["Jinan, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kaikai","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Shandong Youth University of Political Science","place":["Jinan, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"12104","DOI":"10.3390\/su141912104","article-title":"Social insurance burden and corporate environmental performance: evidence from China","volume":"14","author":"Wang","year":"2022","journal-title":"Sustainability"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.worlddev.2017.03.015","article-title":"Technology adoption and employment in less developed countries: a mixed-method systematic review","volume":"96","author":"Ugur","year":"2017","journal-title":"World Dev"},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"265","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jbusres.2022.07.055","article-title":"Cost-cutting actions, employment relations and workplace grievances: lessons from the 2008 financial crisis","volume":"152","author":"Ogbonnaya","year":"2022","journal-title":"J Bus Res"},{"key":"ref4","article-title":"Who Benefits from Payroll Tax Cuts? 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