Migrants In Chinese Cities Research Articles

Migration and migrants in Chinese cities: New trends, challenges and opportunities to theorise with urban China

This introductory article to the special issue discusses some of the latest trends in migration research in urban China and focuses on three areas which have generated new understandings on migration and migrants in Chinese cities. Firstly, it identifies the various similarities and intersections between urban resettlement and migration studies by drawing on the case of China where the livelihoods and experience of migrants and resettled residents have been affected by China’s rapid urbanisation. Secondly, the paper discusses the enduring significance of the residential neighbourhood in influencing the place attachment, social relationships and career development of migrant residents. Finally, it delves deeper into the various ways studies have sought to categorise and differentiate between different migrant sub-groups in urban China and reveals that more fine-grained migration studies have helped better understand China’s large and ever more diverse migrant population and their variegated living experiences and challenges.

Hukou Reform and the “Luohu” of Rural Migrants in Urban China

Along with a series of reforms of the household registration, or the hukou system, there has been a sustained call for its reforms to further integrate rural migrants into cities and sustain the national strategy of urbanization. Nevertheless, does hukou still matter? Is it still a major obstacle to the inclusive development of post-reform urban China? Recently, the effect of the hukou system and its reforms has become a debatable topic. To address the question, in this article, we examine the “luohu” of rural migrants, i.e., rural people who work and/or live in the city obtaining urban hukou, to evaluate the effects of hukou reforms. We argue, along with the improvement of China’s social security system in both urban and rural areas, as well as the increased rights of rural migrants in cities, that the gap between the “value” of urban and rural hukou is decreasing: the boundaries set between urban and rural territories have been diminished; meanwhile, the intentions of rural migrants to luohu in the city have declined. This dilemma indicates that the impact of hukou system per se is fading, which is closely linked to the reforms of other social policies such as welfare and pension systems. As such, to promote the integration of rural migrants in Chinese cities, the focus of China’s hukou reforms should shift from the registration system to more inclusive social policies.

Neighbor interactions and settlement intentions of African Migrants in urban China: A case study of Guangzhou

AbstractThe presence of African migrants in Chinese cities has attracted extensive scholarly interest. While several studies have noticed a decline in the population of African migrants in Guangzhou along with the recent changes of policies on immigration control, the present study casts new light to the currently remaining African migrants in Guangzhou who are less susceptible to the strict immigration control measures and are more likely to be socially included due to the recent favorable policies. It attempts to investigate what factors can further motivate their willingness to stay permanently in the city, and draws attention to the effects of neighbor interactions given their importance for the African communities in China as recently uncovered. Empirical data on 468 respondents were derived from a questionnaire survey conducted in the Xiaobei area of Guangzhou. Through descriptive and multivariate analyses of the determinants of settlement intentions, the present study finds that neighbor interactions affect the settlement intentions of the two major groups of African migrants, namely overseas students and businessmen, in quite different ways. Better affective neighbor relations are conducive to stronger settlement intentions for businessmen, while such an effect is found insignificant for the overseas students. The present study contributes new insights to the literature on settlement intentions by highlighting the importance of neighborhood supporting systems. It also has the potential to encourage new avenues for further research on the settlement intention of foreign populations in urban China, who are confronted with the constantly changing policy environment on immigration control.

Moving Toward an Inclusive Housing Policy?: Migrants’ Access to Subsidized Housing in Urban China

ABSTRACT China is rapidly urbanizing, with hundreds of millions of migrants leaving villages for cities. Under the discriminatory Household Registration (Hukou) System, migrants have been denied urban welfare benefits. The Chinese government has been promoting inclusive urbanization with significant policy changes in recent decades, yet its impact on migrants is not clear. This article examines whether housing is becoming more inclusive to migrants in Chinese cities. A review of recent policy changes at both central and local levels shows that although central housing policy is becoming more inclusive of migrants, local governments have largely remained exclusionary and exercise selective inclusion—allowing only migrants who meet additional, strict requirements to access subsidized housing. The empirical analyses, using two waves of the China Migrants Dynamic Survey, reveal that few migrants have access to subsidized housing despite the policy changes. Institutional barriers continue to exclude migrants from subsidized housing, although many barriers have become less important over time. It is clear that housing discrimination persists, and housing inclusion remains a distant dream for most migrants in China. This research highlights exclusion based on an important but uncommon birth-ascribed status defined by the government and provides a multiscalar perspective on the inclusion of domestic migrants.

Corrigendum to: Escaping from pollution: Air pollution and the settlement intentions of floating migrants in Chinese cities

Corrigendum to: Escaping from pollution: Air pollution and the settlement intentions of floating migrants in Chinese cities

Escaping from pollution: Air pollution and the settlement intentions of floating migrants in Chinese cities

AbstractUnderstanding the mechanisms underlying floating migrants’ settlement intentions is vital for guiding evidence-based policies for China’s urbanisation and regional economic development. While prior studies have identified various determinants of migrants’ settlement decisions, little attention has been paid to the effects of environmental pollution on these decisions. To fill this gap, this study utilises a unique data set combining individual-level data from a national survey and city-level data obtained from various sources to investigate the effects of air pollution on floating migrants’ settlement intentions in China. Using a novel instrumental variable, our regression results show significantly negative impacts of air pollution on both migrants’ permanent settlement intention and their expected length of settlement. Additionally, these impacts are stronger for the skilled migrants compared to the less skilled ones. These findings imply that environmental pollution should be seriously considered when promoting urbanisation in China and beyond.

Education and consumption: Evidence from migrants in Chinese cities

We utilise the implementation of the 1986 Compulsory Education Law in China as a natural experiment to examine the causal impact of educational attainment on consumption among domestic migrants in Chinese cities. Using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, results based on the instrumental variable and difference-in-differences estimators, which correct for endogeneity, suggest that having one additional year of education generates an approximately seven percentage-point increase in adult-equivalent monthly household consumption expenditure per capita. Educational attainment also contributes to consumption inequality in the migrant population. We find that the positive effects of educational attainment on consumption are higher among those with higher income and are lower among those who are females, in a larger household, in a household with a non-adult member, rural migrants, self-employed and older than 45. We also find that migrants' social participation, social engagement, risk preference and permanent settlement intentions partially mediate the relationship between education and consumption.

Emotional labour in a translocal context: rural migrant workers in China’s service sector

ABSTRACT The service industry is a major pillar of China’s urban economy. Rural migrant workers form the backbone workforce in China’s urban service sector. Despite much attention to the work and life of rural migrants in Chinese cities, urban employers’ regulation and rural migrants’ performance of emotional labour in the service sector remain understudied. Drawing on participant observation and in-depth interviews over eight years, we examine how urban employer and rural migrant workers relationally navigate intersecting emotional and migration regimes to contest, (re)produce and (re)configure rural migrants’ power and status in the urban space. We develop the conceptualization of ‘translocal emotional reflexivity’ to elucidate multiplicated emotional regimes and subjectivities between places of origin and arrival, as well as how emotional reflexivity is mobilized to regulate, navigate and negotiate conflictual translocal emotional subjectivities. We discuss the ‘institutionalized individualization’ of emotional labour – a process in which an employer systematically engineers a sense of emotional agency for workers to re-imagine, re-appropriate and individualize their emotional performance to serve institutional aims – as a distinctive feature of how the regulation and performance of emotional labour has evolved over the past decade in China.

Residential neighbourhood choices, capital investment and economic integration of migrants in Chinese cities

As the basic element and most crucial step in the integration process, economic integration is a major theme in migration research. However, few researchers study economic integration from the perspective of residential neighbourhood choices. Based on the China Migrants Dynamic Survey, we explore the association between migrants' residential neighbourhood choices and economic integration in Chinese cities and examine the underlying mechanism of this association. Instrumental variable estimation, an endogenous switching regression model and propensity score matching are applied to control endogeneity problems and to perform robustness checks. The results show that living in formal neighbourhoods (commodity housing, affordable housing, work unit housing, or industrial and mining enterprise neighbourhoods) can promote the economic integration of migrants in China. The impact of migrants' neighbourhood choices on their economic integration occurs partly through human capital investment and social capital investment. When both kinds of investment exist, the human capital investment effect becomes stronger than the social capital investment effect.

Morphology of Urban Villages in China: A Case Study of Dayuan Village in Guangzhou

Urban villages play an important role in providing affordable housing to urban migrants in Chinese cities. They are considered as supplementary to the dual rural-urban system in China. Of central importance to studying urban villages is how the morphology of these informal settlements affects urban life. It is essential for urban planners and designers to examine the morphology of urban villages. This paper, therefore, investigates the morphology of urban villages using the case study of Dayuan Village in Guangzhou, China. The morphology of this urban village is tested against four main elements of urban morphology: urban density, accessibility, functional mix, and urban interface. Our results revealed that the type of street within the urban village has considerable influence on accessibility, functional mix, and urban interface. Regarding urban density, our results show that buildings’ height is not influenced by the centrality of buildings nor land value; however, it is likely that it is affected by planning agreements between the village committee and the local government. Land coverage does not comply with the planning regulation for residential districts. Regarding accessibility analysis, the number of entrances to streets is influenced by the type of street under analysis. The distribution of different types of functional mix is also affected by the type of street within the urban village. The buildings with a mix of ‘live/visit’ are concentrated along the formal streets and primary inner streets. The mono-functional use of ‘live’ and the bi-functional mix of ‘live/work’ are mostly located in the secondary inner streets. Regarding urban interface, our results demonstrate that the formal streets have an interface with considerable porosity, and that this can contribute to the livelihood of the immediate area.

Temporary migrants and public space: a case study of Dongguan, China

ABSTRACT The development of the labour-intensive manufacturing sector in Dongguan, China, stimulated significant inflows of temporary migrants. However, their temporary status limits migrants’ mobility and restrains their access to public resources available in the city. The community square in proximity to factories provides space for temporary migrant workers and their families to congregate, socialise and exercise during after-work hours. Grounded in theoretical discussions of the precarity of temporary migration and the intersection of migrants and urban space, this study uses participant observations and semi-structured interviews to examine the following questions: (1) What are the spatial and temporal patterns of temporary migrants’ use of the community square? (2) How do temporary migrants’ use of the community square indicate social inclusion or exclusion from the destination society? (3) How do temporary migrants experience precarity in spatial and temporal dimensions? The research findings suggest that the temporary status of migrants and fast-paced work schedules of manufacturing factories limit migrants’ options for after-work leisure activities both spatially and temporally. The research has broad implications for the integration of temporary migrants in Chinese cities and the development of public space to enhance social belonging among underserved migrant populations.

Homeownership and happiness in urban China

Our paper explores the relationship between home ownership and happiness for local residents and migrants in Chinese cities. Our analysis is guided by literature about home ownership, life satisfaction, international migration, and internal migration. The analysis is based on the 2015 China Household Finance Survey. We compared the level of happiness by home ownership status among local residents, rural migrants and urban migrants. We found that, among homeowners, both rural migrants and local residents are happier than urban migrants. Our results also indicate that rural migrants who own homes in urban areas are significantly happier than non-homeowners, but rural migrants who own homes in rural areas are not significantly happier than non-homeowners. In addition, the results reveal that the level of happiness is not related to whether or not they live in the homes that they own. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Hukou and Citizenship Rights in China: A Case Study on Migrant Labour

<p align="justify"><strong>Abstract</strong><strong></strong></p><p align="justify">This article is going to discuss <em>hukou</em> in detail and how it juxtaposes with citizenship rights of migrants in China. The first part of this article deals with China’s <em>hukou</em> policies and its implications on Chinese society and going to discuss how migrants are trying to fit city life even within this tight and strict <em>hukou</em> system. The second section talks about the denial of the complete citizenship to the floating population in their country, and how they are treated as secondary citizens by urban people. Also, article tries to bring the basic concept of citizenship in the light of the state policies of denial of their rights and discriminating its rural population even though they have been the fuel of Chinese rapid economic and infrastructural growth and made China as world’s factory. The third and final part examines the provisions of <em>hukou</em> and juxtaposes them with the notion of citizenship to show how they contradict each other in contemporary China in the era of domestic migration. So, it is a bit difficult situation to clarify those Chinese concepts of legitimising their views with the modern concept of citizenship. Still, it is an attempt to elaborate and conceptualise life and rights of migrants in Chinese cities. </p><p align="justify"> </p><p align="justify"><strong>Keywords: </strong>China, Migrants, <em>hukou</em>, Citizenship rights</p>

Understanding the Gap Between De Facto and De Jure Urbanization in China: A Perspective from Rural Migrants’ Settlement Intention

This paper tries to analyze the determinants and driving mechanisms of both settlement intention and hukou transfer intention for rural migrants in Chinese cities, which can help to understand the gap between de facto and de jure urbanization in China. Based on China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) in 2014, 1145 samples with their settlement intention, hukou transfer intention, individual demographic characteristics, urban working and living conditions, rural resources and attachment, and geographic characteristics were collected. It suggested that compared with settlement intention, the rural migrants’ hukou transfer intention were much weaker. The rural migrants preferred small and medium cities for urban settlement but large and megacities for urban hukou conversion. By logistic regression analysis, a set of complex determinants of settlement intention was identified, including age, education attainment, marital status and spouse living together, as well as the trade-off between urban working and living conditions in the current host cities and rural landholdings and attachment in the hometown. In contrast, the hukou transfer intention was mainly determined by age, personal income, rural landholdings and the size of current host city, which highlighted the personal citizenization capacity and the trade-off between benefits related to urban and rural hukou. Moreover, by examining the characteristics of four sub-types of rural migrants with different settlement intention and hukou transfer intention, it was found that the rural migrants who intended to settle down and convert hukou at the same time usually had high personal citizenization capacity and preferred megacities; those who intended to settle down but rejected hukou conversion usually had high citizenization capacity and low migration cost; those who intended to convert hukou but rejected settling down in the cites preferred megacities instead of small cities; those who did not intend to settle down or convert hukou at all usually had low citizenization capacity and high migration cost. Based on these findings, it is recommended to promote the complete citizenization of rural migrants by improving their livelihood and well-being in the cities through kinds of policy reform about hukou, land, and social insurance.

Supporting or dragging? effects of neighbourhood social ties on social integration of rural-to-urban migrants in China

Urban scholars have debated the complex effects of neighbourhood-based social ties on the economic and social integration of marginalized populations in the mainstream urban society. Studies of migrant populations in China have noted the existence of strong neighbourhood ties and solidarity in migrant communities, but few have examined whether strong neighbourhood cohesion enhances or hinders broader social integration of rural migrants. This article investigates the extent to which different types of social ties in the neighbourhood, as opposed to more social networks developed at the city level, predict more frequent intergroup interaction and stronger place attachment among rural migrants in Chinese cities. Statistical analysis, using data from a twelve-city migrant survey, reveals that, while the diversity of social networks does matter, the neighbourhood is a territorial anchor supporting, rather than dragging, the urban social integration of rural migrants. The findings highlight the importance of neighbourhood in China’s inclusive urbanization strategy and potential conflicts in recent deprived neighbourhood redevelopment programs.

The ‘Inferior’ Talk Back: Suzhi (Human Quality), Social Mobility, and E-Commerce Economy in China

ABSTRACTRural migrants in Chinese cities are often stigmatized as ‘low-suzhi’ population and marginalized in urban social hierarchy. Existing scholarship has demonstrated how urbanities used suzhi discourse to justify their exploitation of migrants while maintaining class distinctions, and how migrants embraced urban lifestyles to improve their suzhi. Yet, this literature rarely addresses resistance of the ‘inferior’. By looking at the social interactions between migrant entrepreneurs and local residents in a city of southeastern China, this study shows that the emerging e-commerce economy has enabled many rural migrants to acquire financial, social, and cultural capital, which empower them to speak for themselves. Their rising wealth and self-representation as ‘high-suzhi’ entrepreneurs has reshaped their identity in the urban business world.

Social media, social integration and subjective well-being among new urban migrants in China

The current generation of migrants in Chinese cities, named “new urban migrants,” is closely related with social changes in today’s China. As these urban migrants are increasingly dependent on new media, particularly social media for news, entertainment, and social interaction, it is important to know how social media use contributes to their social integration and subjective well-being. Based on an online survey, this study identified positive relationship between new urban migrants’ social media use and their subjective well-being, as well as the possible indirect relationship through social integration. The overall positive socio-psychological effects of social media use within Chinese urban migrants were found. Specifically, this study revealed that social media use can contribute to their social integration, including their building of social identity and social network as well as real-world social participation. New urban migrants’ social integration, particularly their level of social identity, is significantly associated with their subjective well-being.

Does formal housing encourage settlement intention of rural migrants in Chinese cities? A structural equation model analysis

A growing body of literature has attempted to understand the social integration of rural migrants in Chinese cities, and specifically patterns and determinants of migrant settlement intention. However, few studies have directly investigated the role of housing access in migrant settlement in cities. Based on a 12-city migrant survey conducted in 2009, this paper adopts the structural equation modelling approach to delineate the causal relationship between housing access and migrant settlement intention. We found a positive correlation between access to formal housing and stronger settlement intention, but such relationship was more attributed to a sorting process in which rural migrants who are more willing to settle down strive to expand their access to formal housing. Meanwhile, controlling for socio-demographic variables, sociocultural attachment factors are more significant predictors of migrant settlement intention than economic opportunities and achievements. These findings imply the necessity of a combination of affordable housing policy and other social policy measures if the government hopes to achieve the goal of boosting permanent settlement of rural migrants in cities and towns.

Gender Inequalities in Employment and Wage-earning among Economic Migrants in Chinese Cities

Background: Recent trends show an unprecedented feminisation of migration in China, triggered by the increasing demand for cheap labour in big cities and the availability of women in the labour market. These trends corroborate the evidence that non-agricultural work and remittance from urban labour migrants have become the major sources of rural household income. Objective: This paper investigates the extent of gender inequalities in job participation and wage earning among internal labour migrants in China. We hypothesize that female migrants in cities are economically more disadvantaged than male migrants in the job market. Methods: We use data from the 2010 National Migrant Dynamics Monitoring Survey conducted in 106 cities representing all 31 provinces and geographic regions. The study applies the standard Heckman two-step Probit-OLS method to model job participation and wage-earning, separately for 59,225 males and 41,546 females aged 16-59 years, adjusting for demographic and social characteristics and potential selection effects. Results: Female migrants have much lower job-participation and wage-earning potential than male migrants. Male migrants earn 26% higher hourly wages than their female counterparts. Decomposition analysis confirms potential gender discrimination, suggesting that 88% of the gender difference in wages (or 12% of female migrant wage) is due to discriminatory treatment of female migrants in the Chinese job market. Migrants with rural hukou status have a smaller chance of participation in the job market and they earn lower wages than those with urban hukou, regardless of education advantage. Conclusions: There is evidence of significant female disadvantage among internal labour migrants in the job market in Chinese cities. Household registration by urban and rural areas, as controlled by the hukou status, partly explains the differing job participation and wage earning among female labour migrants in urban China. Comments: Female migrants have higher opportunity costs and family constraints to participate in job market than male migrants. Higher job participation among male migrants suggests that men face stiff competition for jobs in cities and are more likely to accept jobs with a lower wage offer.

Floating or settling down: the effect of rural landholdings on the settlement intention of rural migrants in urban China

The industrialization and urban development in China have driven a huge portion of the rural population to its urban areas. While discriminating institutions engendered by the hukou system exclude most rural migrants from urban rights and benefits, the option of converting hukou has become increasingly available. Nevertheless, few rural migrants have chosen to settle down in cities by obtaining an urban hukou, which contradicts a common perception that rural migrants desire an urban hukou. Based on a recent migrant survey in Jiangsu Province, this paper explores rural migrants' intention of hukou conversion with respect to the availability, type, and quantity of rural landholdings in their home countryside, as well as their socioeconomic attributes and migration patterns. The results of regression analyses indicate that both the possession of farmland and housing land in rural areas significantly influences the intention of rural migrants to obtain an urban hukou in their destination cities. Moreover, systematic variances in settlement intention are found between the “born-after-1980” generation and their older counterparts, as well as between migrants from the more and less affluent regions. These findings suggest that the decision of hukou conversion incorporates varied concerns and purposes among rural migrants in Chinese cities, which should be addressed with more responsive rural and urban policies.