New Trends in Internal Migration in China: Profiles of the New‐generation Migrants
| Author | Wei Zhang,Liqiu Zhao,Shouying Liu |
| Published date | 01 January 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12227 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
©2018 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
China & World Economy / 18–41, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2018
18
*Liqiu Zhao, Associate Professor, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China,
China. Email: liqiuzh@gmail.com; Shouying Liu, Professor, School of Economics, Renmin University of
China, China. Email: liusy18@126.com; Wei Zhang, Associate Professor, School of Marxism, Tang Scholar,
Tsinghua University, China. Email: wzhangtsu@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn. The authors thank the National Bureau
of Statistics of China and the National Population and Family Planning Commission for the data. This study
was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Research Funds of
Renmin University of China (No. 13XNF038).
New Trends in Internal Migration in China:
Proles of the New-generation Migrants
Liqiu Zhao, Shouying Liu, Wei Zhang*
Abstract
Three decades since the first wave of rural–urban migration, the new generation of
migrant workers has become the main force of internal migration in China. The present
paper comprehensively explores the proles of the new generation of migrant workers in
urban China. We nd that the “new generation” migrants are more educated and skilled,
and are likely to work in manufacturing and service industries than in the construction
industry. Moreover, they tend to allocate more time to non-farm activities and have more
months away from home per year in urban areas. In contrast to their predecessors, they
tend to migrate to urban areas with their spouses, consume more in urban areas and
send less money back home. Our ndings suggest that the dierences in features between
the new generation of rural migrants and urban residents have become smaller and the
integration of rural migrants into urban China has taken place gradually.
Key words: internal migration, new generation of migrant workers, rural–urban
integration
JEL codes: O15, R23
I. Introduction
Since the late 1980s, the restrictions on rural–urban migration in China have been
gradually eased. Tremendous numbers of rural workers, driven by a large urban–rural
income gap, have moved to the cities, contributing to China’s spectacular economic
growth. This large-scale internal migration has created the largest labor ow in world
history. As shown in China’s One percent National Population Sample Survey, the
©2018 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
New Trends in Internal Migration in China 19
inter-county migration population grew from 21.35 million in 1990 to 253 million in
2015. With the return of the rst generation of migrant workers to rural areas, the “new
generation” of migrants (i.e. migrants who were born after 1980) have become the main
force of internal migration in China.1 As the new generation of migrant workers were
exposed to a series of reforms introduced during this period, they may have substantially
dierent features and behaviors compared to the rst generation. Analysis of the new
generation of migrant workers is important to understand the fundamental changes in
society in China. In this paper, we aim to explore the proles of the new generation of
migrant workers in urban China.
A large number of studies on internal migration in China focus on the determinants
of rural to urban migration (Hare, 1999; Zhao, 1999; Li and Zahniser, 2002; Lu and
Song, 2006; Hu, 2008).2 The key variables include age, gender, education, marital
status, per capita land allocation, per capita production assets, the urban–rural income
gap and residence registration. Migrants tend to be younger: migrants normally go to
cities in their late teens. Men are more likely to migrate because of the stronger demand
for male migrants in the construction industry in urban areas.3 Migrants are more
educated than non-migrants.4 The majority of migrants have senior high school or junior
high school education. Most rural-to-urban migrants work in dangerous, dirty or low-
pay jobs. Zhao (1999), Guang and Zheng (2005), Knight and Song (2003) and Du et al.
(2005) nd an inverted U-shaped relationship between household endowments and the
likelihood of migration. In other words, the poorest households, constrained by their
limited endowment, are unable to migrate, while the best-endowed households prefer
local o-farm jobs. In addition, the land tenure insecurity in rural areas is an obstacle to
migration (Zhao, 1999; Mullan et al., 2011).
The dominant form of labor migration in China is temporary and circular migration.
Most migrants leave their families behind in rural areas and travel between their origin
and destination during the harvest times and the Spring Festival, which we refer to
as circular migration. Most rural migrants identify themselves as farmers rather than
workers. They retain a strong attachment to rural areas, the land and especially their
rural households. Migrants remit a large share of their income (Liu and Reilly, 2004)
1The term “new generation of migrant workers” was officially introduced year 2010’s “No. 1 Central
Document”, which is the major policy document released at the beginning of each year to address government
priorities.
2See Zhao (2005) for a detailed survey of China’s migration studies.
3As shown in Hare (1999), 70 percent of migrants were engaged in the construction sector in 1995.
4Li and Zahniser (2002) nd that the prole for migration education is quadratic, with the least educated and
most educated members of rural society being less likely to migrate.
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