Does migration experience reduce villagers’ social capital? Evidence from rural China

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this study, we examine the impact of migration experience on return migrant’s social capital using household survey data from rural China. We first develop a simple model to describe rural household’s decision to invest in social capital and then empirically examine how migration experience affects social capital using village-level natural disasters as instrumental variables for migration experience. Our results show that villagers’ migration experience reduces both structural social capital and cognitive social capital. Compared with those who never worked out of their native villages, return migrants would practice fewer social interactions, information communication, trust building and reciprocal behaviours with relatives. We provide suggestive evidence that the decline in social capital may be caused by the higher expected mobility of return migrants.