Demographic and Social Impact of Internal Migration in China

Abstract

Restrictions on internal mobility eased, de facto at least, with the beginning of the economic reforms in the late 1970s. A freer labour market developed, and the burgeoning urban economy created huge demand for labour, especially in coastal regions. Large-scale internal migration therefore became a dramatic feature of demographic change in China, involving the temporary or permanent movement of tens and then hundreds of millions of people, mostly from rural towards urban areas. Over a very short period, migration and rapid urbanization have had powerful impacts on social stratification, living standards and ways of life, age structures in the urban and rural areas, and gender and intergenerational relations.

This chapter focuses on the impacts of internal migration as they appeared around the time of the 2010 census (characteristics of migration flows and their impact on age and sex structure, gender differences in migration, reasons for migration, the population left behind in the villages). It then considers the impact of migration on gender equality and, more generally, on rural/urban inequality.

Conclusion

Rural-to-urban migration is one of the most important aspects of contemporary demographic change in China. As the 2010 census shows clearly, it has involved the movement of hundreds of millions of Chinese. As migration attracts predominantly young people, it has had a considerable effect on the age structure of the population in both urban and rural areas. The rural areas have a disproportionate share of the old and the very young, while the urban areas have more than their share of people of working age. Due largely to rural-to-urban migration, the urban population now outnumbers the rural population in China, and everything suggests that these trends will continue. The rural-urban earnings gap and the disparities between regions continue to make migration attractive to young people in the rural areas. Moreover, government policy on migration has switched from ambivalence to positive encouragement, with a recently announced target of increasing urbanization to 60 % by 2020 (Hasija 2013).

The census shows that most migrants move for work and trade, education and training, family reunification and marriage. The first of these reasons obviously embraces economic migrants, but it is likely that most migrants who give other reasons for migration are also trying to improve their economic situation. It is ironic, therefore, that barriers to the upward mobility of migrants, primarily the hukou system but also existing inequalities in human capital (education, skills, experience and contacts) make it very difficult for migrant workers from the countryside to attain anything like the living standards of urban residents. Poor levels of integration, and in particular the exclusion of many migrant children from good quality education, mean that even second-generation rural migrants brought up in the cities are likely to inherit their parents’ low status. In a sense, migration, far from solving the problem of urban-rural inequality, has merely given it a new form. According to recent official commentaries, 53 % of the Chinese population now live in the urban areas but only 35 % hold an urban hukou with its attendant entitlements. The Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, has associated himself with calls for the gradual resolution of this inequitable anomaly but it is not clear when this will be done, or how the costs will be met (Reuters 2013).

Migration has had considerable consequences for society and families, both urban and rural. Overall, migration has helped to alleviate rural poverty, as rural labourers move to the urban areas, earn more and send remittances home (Chan 2013). However, when the proportion of the youthful workforce who leave is too high, some villages may remain trapped in poverty and unable to develop.

Difficulty in accessing good accommodation, healthcare and education means that many migrants return to their villages or, in many cases, to towns close to their original homes when they marry or have their first child. Few make a once-and-for-all decision; rather, their comings and goings between cities, towns and villages are influenced by their age, marital status, parenthood and the balance between their need for an urban wage and the need for their labour in the village.

The mobile lives migrants are forced to live are not conducive to stable family relations. Husbands and wives, separated for long periods by work, may not get on when they start living together again. Old people in the rural areas struggle to manage without the help of their adult children, especially if they are burdened with the care of their grandchildren. Millions of children with migrant parents are growing up separated from one or both of their parents, or sharing highly unsatisfactory living conditions with them in the urban areas. Women, whether as migrants, or as wives left behind in the villages, are likely to develop more independence and confidence in the age of mass migration. On the other hand they suffer from overwork, loneliness and relationships under stress from long separations.

In sum, the social impacts of migration on the enormous scale reflected in China’s 2010 census are a complex mix of the positive and negative. The lives and experiences of migrants vary greatly, depending on interdependent factors such as their gender, age, employment, accommodation, pay and conditions, their networks … and their luck. In this, migration and urbanization in China are not so different from migration and urbanization elsewhere, which historically have led to growth and higher standards of living but have also resulted in enormous individual suffering. Special factors in China have been the scale and pace of demographic change and the discriminatory effects of the hukou system. Despite the extensive discourse on hukou reform and apparent central government support for its gradual abolition, the hukou system seems for now to be simply in a process of reform, with its details and implementation allowed to vary by locality. As this chapter has shown, it even shapes the form in which census data are presented. It seems likely that this will still be the case at the time of the next census in 2020.