Migrants In Urban China Research Articles

‘Anyway, you are an outsider’: Temporary migrants in urban China

In this paper, we extend recent discussions on the relationship with the host place of ‘temporary’ or non- hukou migrants in major Chinese cities through the lens of three psychological processes: familiarity, attachment and identity. The empirical analysis is based on fieldwork conducted in selected villages-in-the-city in Guangzhou. A mixed methods approach is employed. The findings highlight the emotional distance between temporary migrants and their urban milieu: while some become familiar with the city through their prolonged stay, very few establish attachment and identity. The analysis shows that the dominance of indigenous villagers is a major obstacle for migrants to develop attachment to the given village-in-the-city; moreover, perceived institutional discriminations negatively affect migrants’ attachment to the city. The findings also corroborate a social constructionist perception of place identity: when place identity is legitimated and reproduced by the hukou system, it is difficult for migrants to challenge the hegemonic constructions of place and identity and to create their own narratives of identities.

Measuring the effects of socioeconomic factors on mental health among migrants in urban China: a multiple indicators multiple causes model

ObjectivesSince 1978, rural–urban migrants mainly contribute Chinese urbanization. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of socioeconomic factors on mental health of them. Their mental health was measured by 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12).MethodsThe study sample comprised 5925 migrants obtained from the 2009 rural-to-urban migrants survey (RUMiC). The relationships among the instruments were assessed by the correlation analysis. The one-factor (overall items), two-factor (positive vs. negative items), and model conducted by principal component analysis were tested in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). On the basis of three CFA models, the three multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) models with age, gender, marriage, ethnicity, and employment were constructed to investigate the concurrent associations between socioeconomic factors and GHQ-12.ResultsOf the sample, only 1.94% were of ethnic origin and mean age was 31.63 (SD = ±10.43) years. The one-factor, two-factor, and three-factor structure (i.e. semi-positive/negative/independent usefulness) had good model fits in the CFA analysis and gave order (i.e. 2 factor>3 factor>1 factor), which suggests that the three models can be used to assess psychological symptoms of migrants in urban China. All MIMIC models had acceptable fit and gave order (i.e. one-dimensional model>two-dimensional model>three-dimensional model).ConclusionsThere were weak associations of socioeconomic factors with mental health among migrants in urban China. Policy discussion suggested that improvement of socioeconomic status of rural–urban migrants and mental health systems in urban China should be highlighted and strengthened.

The impact of job contact networks on wages of rural–urban migrants in China: a switching regression approach

In nationally representative household data from the 2008 Chinese Rural to Urban Migration Survey, nearly two thirds of rural–urban migrants found their employment through family members, relatives, friends or acquaintances. This paper investigates why the use of social network to find jobs is so prevalent among rural–urban migrants in China, and whether migrants face a wage penalty as a result of adopting this job search method. Using a switch regression approach, we find evidence of positive selection effects of the use of networks on wages. Users of networks tend to be older, to have migrated longer ago and to be less educated. In addition, married workers and those from villages with more out-migrant are more likely to use networks, while those without local residential registration status are less likely. Controlling for selectivity, we find a large negative impact of network use on wages. Using job contacts brings access to urban employment, but at the cost of markedly lower wages.

Informal Search, Bad Search? The Effects of Job Search Method on Wages Among Rural Migrants in Urban China

The use of informal job search method is prevalent in many countries. There is, however, no consensus in the literature on whether it actually matters for wages, and if it does, what are the underlying mechanisms. We empirically examine these issues specifically for rural migrants in urban China, a country where one of the largest domestic migration in human history has occurred over the past decades. We find that there exists a significant wage penalty for those migrant workers who have conducted their search through informal channels, despite their popularity. Our further analysis suggests two potential reasons for the wage penalty: 1) the informal job search sends a negative signal (of workers' inability to successfully find a job in a competitive market) to potential employers, resulting in lower wages; and 2) there exists a trade-off between wages and search efficiency for quicker entry into local labor market. We also find some evidence that the informal job search may lead to low-skilled jobs with lower wages. We do not find strong evidence supporting alternative explanations.

Where are Migrants from? Inter- vs. Intra-Provincial Rural-Urban Migration in China

Using a representative sample of rural migrants in cities, this paper investigates where the migrants in urban China come from, paying close attention to intra-provincial vs. inter-provincial migrants, and examining the differences in their personal attributes. We find that migrants who have come within the province differ significantly from those who have come from outside of the province. Using a nested logit model, we find that overall, higher wage differentials, larger population size, higher GDP per capita, and faster employment growth rate are the attributes of a city that attract migrants from both within and outside province. In addition, moving beyond one’s home province has a strong deterrent effect on migration, analogous to the “border effect” identified in international migration studies. We also explore the role of culture, institutional barrier, and dialect in explaining such a pronounced “border effect”.

What determines the settlement intention of rural migrants in China? Economic incentives versus sociocultural conditions

The international literature has continuously debated over what factors – economic incentives or socio-cultural conditions – are more important when migrant populations make settlement vs. return migration decisions. China's urbanization policy recently took a sharp turn toward encouraging full integration and permanent settlement of rural migrants in cities. Yet policymaking to date has relied on limited empirical evidence on determinants of migrant settlement intention. Using data derived from a twelve-city survey conducted in 2009, this paper investigates the extent to which economic incentives and socio-cultural conditions may determine the settlement intention of rural migrants in urban China. Regression analysis reveals that, although migrants with better human capital are more inclined to settle down in cities, socio-cultural attachment plays an equally, if not more important role in determining migrant settlement intention. Meanwhile, while the settlement intention of the first-generational migrants is more driven by the socio-cultural conditions, economic incentives are more important for the new-generation rural migrants. We thus call for more targeted policy design that takes into account such intergenerational differences.

Analyzing In-Migrants and Out-Migrants in Urban China

Massive urbanization is producing large-scale urban migration in China. Based on the database of the Population Information System of the Health and Family Planning Commission, the spatial characteristics and demographic structural characteristics of migrants have been analyzed at the inter-provincial, intra- provincial and city scales, using Wuhan, China as a case study. A panoramic image of the overall migration in this area has been produced, illustrating that in-migration continues to have a “squeezing” effect on low-skilled jobs with low barriers to entry. There are clear differences between in-migrants and out-migrants; the great majority of in-migrants are fertile women and floating children, and out-migrants have left their children. Moreover, basic public services are insufficient for in-migrants. This paper concludes by presenting a selection of policies to help manage migrants.

The Emergence of Informal Institutions among Internal Migrants in Urban China

China's dramatic economic development and urbanisation have led to an increase in its number of internal migrants. As of 2013, this group accounted for more than 20 per cent of the country's population, and approximately 70 per cent of people in this group are working in the informal economy. This paper pays special attention to migrant-traders in the informal sector and the strategies they use in Shanghai. Migrants are doubly marginalised by the hukou ([Formula: see text]) and danwei ([Formula: see text]) systems in the megacity and have only limited access to social welfare. It is argued that the informal strategies of these marginalised actors develop in related patterns of social relationships and institutional constraints. Such strategies create new forms of informal institutions that are justified and gain legitimacy when countering unequal and hierarchical formal institutions and social arrangements. This paper empirically explores how informal institutions can act in parallel with or diverge from formal institutions, and how they might influence formal institutions in the long term.

China's Great Migration and the Prospects of a More Integrated Society

During the last three decades, China has experienced the largest migration in human history. China's great migration has had transformative social, economic, and demographic consequences for China and the world. In this review, first I provide background on China's household registration system (hukou), which has been in existence since the late 1950s and continues to affect the life chances of Chinese people. Then I focus on the great migration by discussing research that has examined its causes, migration trends, the adaptation/assimilation of migrants in urban China, the well-being of migrant children, and migration's impact on rural China. Finally, I identify key areas for future research and argue that China's great migration holds major promise to contribute to the literature on migration studies.

An experimental study of the effect of intergroup contact on attitudes in urban China

A large body of literature attests to the growing social divide between urban residents and rural–urban migrants in China’s cities. This study uses a randomised experiment to test the effect of intergroup contact on attitudes between a group of urban adolescents and a group of rural–urban migrant adolescents. Results showed that intergroup contact in the form of a fun and cooperative puzzle task significantly reduced negative attitudes toward the other group. Implications for desegregated schooling and their broader societal implications in China are discussed.

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.

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.

Economic Transition and Self-employment of Migrants in Urban China

Economic Transition and Self-employment of Migrants in Urban China

Remittances and relative concerns in rural China

The paper investigates the impact of remittances on the relative concerns of households in rural China. Using the Rural to Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) dataset we estimate a series of subjective well-being functions to simultaneously explore relative concerns with respect to income and remittances. Our results show that although rural households experience substantial welfare loss due to income comparisons, they gain well-being by comparing their remittances with those received by their reference group. In other words, we find evidence of a “status effect” with respect to income and of a “signal effect” of similar magnitude with respect to remittances. This finding is robust to various specifications, alternative reference group definitions, controls for the endogeneity of remittances and selective migration, as well as the use of migrants' net contribution to household income.

Remittances and expenditure patterns of the left behinds in rural China

This paper investigates how private transfers from internal migration in China affect the expenditure behavior of families left behind in rural areas. Using data from the Rural–Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) survey, we assess the impact of remittances sent to rural households on consumption-type and investment-type expenditures. We apply propensity score matching to account for the selection of households into receiving remittances, and estimate average treatment effects on the treated. We find that remittances supplement income in rural China and lead to increased consumption rather than increased investment. Moreover, we find evidence of a strong negative impact on education expenditures, which could be detrimental to sustaining investment in human capital in poor rural areas in China.

Social Trust Between Rural Migrants and Urban Locals in China – Exploring the Effects of Residential Diversity and Neighbourhood Deprivation

AbstractThe social integration of migrants has become a major challenge for Chinese cities as many rural migrants still face discrimination from urban natives. Research suggests that intergroup social trust can improve cohesion and reduce stigmatisation. However, little is known about the trust level between migrants and locals and its underlying dynamics in urban China. Our study explores the trust between native Shanghai residents and rural migrants and how neighbourhood factors including residential diversity and neighbourhood poverty may play a role. We adopt a multilevel model to analyse the 1,420 questionnaire samples collected in 2013 from local and migrant residents in Shanghai. Our results show that people living in areas with more migrant residents also have higher intergroup social trust, which may indicate that exposure to more out‐group neighbours can remove preconceived stigmas and foster tolerance. In contrast, there is less intergroup trust in poor neighbourhoods although migrant residents are exceptions. We speculate that migrants are less affected by local poverty because they are less spatially bound to the locality and are thus less likely to compete with native residents over local resources. Our results differ from findings in multi‐ethnic societies where residential diversity causes distrust, but we believe this is a reasonable outcome considering that locals and migrants in urban China share more in common such as ethnicity, language, and national identity. © 2015 The Authors.Population, Space and Placepublished by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Population Prevalence of Need for Spectacles and Spectacle Ownership Among Urban Migrant Children in Eastern China.

The number of urban migrants in China is 300 million and is increasing rapidly in response to government policies. Urban migrants have poor access to health care, but little is known about rates of correction of refractive error among migrant children. This is of particular significance in light of recent evidence demonstrating the educational impact of providing children with spectacles. To measure prevalence of spectacle need and ownership among Chinese migrant children. Population-based, cross-sectional study among children who failed vision testing (uncorrected visual acuity ≤6/12 in either eye) between September 15 and 30, 2013, at 94 randomly selected primary schools in predominantly migrant communities in Shanghai, Suzhou, and Wuxi, China. Refractive error by cycloplegic refraction; spectacle ownership, defined as producing glasses at school, having been told to bring them; and needing glasses, defined as uncorrected visual acuity of 6/12 or less correctable to greater than 6/12 in either eye, with myopia of -0.5 diopters (D) or less, hyperopia of +2.0 D or greater, or astigmatism of 0.75 D or greater in both eyes. Among 4409 children, 4376 (99.3%) completed vision screening (mean [SD] age, 11.0 [0.81] years; 55.3% boys; 4225 [96.5%] migrant and 151 [3.5%] local). Among 1204 children failing vision testing (total, 27.5%; 1147 migrant children [27.1%] vs 57 local children [37.7%]; P = .003), 850 (70.6%) completed refraction. Spectacle ownership in migrant children needing glasses (147 of 640 children [23.0%]) was less than among local children (12 of 34 children [35.3%]) (odds ratio = 0.55; 95% CI, 0.32-0.95; P = .03). Having uncorrected visual acuity less than 6/18 in both eyes was associated positively with baseline spectacle ownership (odds ratio = 5.73; 95% CI, 3.81-8.62; P < .001), but parental education and family wealth were not. Among urban migrant children, there was a high prevalence of need for spectacles and a very low rate of spectacle ownership. Spectacle distribution programs are needed specifically targeting migrant children.

Rural–Urban Migration, Substitutability of Human Capital and City Productivity: Evidence from China

AbstractAmong the studies on the productivity effect of migration, the role of the substitutability of human capital between migrant workers and local workers has not received much attention. The elasticity of substitution is important for rural–urban migration in China, because there is a substantial difference in schooling quality between rural and urban regions and because there is imperfect competition in city labor markets. Using aggregate city‐level data from the 2010 China Population Census, we find that the positive effect of human capital on city productivity improves as the substitutability increases. Moreover, a grid‐search shows that the “best” estimate of the substitutability in China is between 2.1 and 2.5, far from being complete.

The association between rural–urban migration flows and urban air quality in China

In light of the rapid urbanization of the world’s population over the past decades, there is a growing concern about the environmental impacts of urban population growth. Rural–urban migration is a particularly important component of the urbanization process in developing countries and is often considered to be detrimental to urban environmental conditions. However, few studies have explicitly examined the presumed negative impacts of in-migration on the natural environment of cities. The continuously increasing volume of rural–urban labor migration in China since the early 1980s has formed the largest population flow in world history. This study links the existing literature on population–environment and urbanization–environment interactions by empirically assessing the relationship between rural–urban migration and urban air conditions in China. A two-period (2004 and 2010) longitudinal dataset for the 113 key environmental protection cities of China was constructed based on multiple data sources. We applied the STIRPAT equation using conventional and spatial panel regression models to examine whether rural–urban migration flows were associated with air pollution in cities. Results show a strong negative association of in-migration with urban air quality even after controlling for the effects of other population, affluence, and technology factors. Findings from this research can contribute to a better understanding of the environmental consequences of rural–urban migration in China, with broader implications for sustainable development research and policies.

Returns to schooling for urban and migrant workers in China: a detailed investigation

ABSTRACTWe use a new data set, the 2009 Rural Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) to estimate returns to schooling in China using instrumental variable (IV) estimation. After identifying a set of instruments, we conduct comprehensive validity and relevance testing of different combinations of instruments as well as robustness analysis of our estimates for rural-to-urban migrants and urban residents in China. We find that our point estimates are in the 6–9% range for urban workers compared to 7–8% for migrant workers. Returns for men (at 8–9%) are slightly higher than for women (at 6–7%). Thus, private returns to education in urban China in 2009 were not as high as other transition and developing countries, but substantial and have increased over time. Comparing OLS and IV estimates, we also find that the attenuation bias due to measurement error is generally large and more important in the migrant sample compared to the urban sample.