Migrations in the Urban—Rural Hierarchy of China: Insights from the Microdata of the 1987 National Survey

After presenting a brief account of the societal context of China, the authors use the microdata of the 1987 National Population Survey to study the migration behaviors of Chinese people in the mid-1980s. The authors' main concern is with the effects of the government migration policy, and the focus is on the migrations in the city/town/rural hierarchy. There are two main findings. First, although the migration policy resulted in a very low migration level and systematic distortions in migration schedules, its encouragement of downward migrations was very ineffective, whereas its control on rural-to-urban migrations was partially weakened by the strong upward aspiration of rural families awakened by recent economic reform. Consequently, net in-migration contributed substantially to the growth both of city and of town populations. Second, although the level of education had a strong positive effect on the migration propensities both of males and of females in general, it had a strong negative effect on the migration propensities of females at the time of marriage, a finding which suggests that the families at subsistence income level tended to marry their daughters to grooms in other communities in order to reduce the risk of familial income shortfalls.

Migrations in the Urban—Rural Hierarchy of China: Insights from the Microdata of the 1987 National Survey Journal Articles