Relaxing Hukou: Increased labor mobility and China’s economic geography

Bosker, Maarten; Brakman, Steven; Garretsen, Harry; Schramm, Marc

doi:10.1016/j.jue.2012.06.002

Cited by 116 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The results have shown that the scale and spatial distribution of migrants are substantially influenced by numerous factors, including the income gap between urban and rural areas, nonagricultural employment opportunities, household registration deregulation, the rural land system, and the tax system (Zhao, 1999;Zhu, 2002;Mullan et al, 2011;Bosker et al, 2012). These factors reflect that the state and market forces coexist and exert interactive effects that prompt large-scale internal migration in transitional China (Liang and White, 1997;Fan, 2005;Shen, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a new era in which more than half of the population resides in cities, urbanization has become a core concern for national development. Within the recent 30 years of urban development in China, the floating population (i.e., migrants) has been the primary contributor to the national urbanization, and therefore has been a research focus for numerous domestic and international scholars (Chan and Zhang, 1999;Fan, 2008;Bosker et al, 2012;Fu and Gabriel, 2012;Ma and Chen, 2012;Lu et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Spatial patterns, driving forces, and urbanization effects of China’s internal migration: County-level analysis based on the 2000 and 2010 censuses

Liu

Cao

et al. 2015

J. Geogr. Sci.

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China has witnessed unprecedented urbanization over the past decades. The rapid expansion of urban population has been dominantly contributed by the floating population from rural areas, of which the spatiotemporal patterns, driving forces, and multidimensional effects are scrutinized and evaluated in this study by using the latest national censuses conducted in 2000 and 2010. Analysis based on the county-level data comes to conclusions as follows. The spatial pattern of floating population has remained stable over the first decade of the new century. The top 1% cities with the largest floating population received 45.5% of all migrants in China. As the rapid development of mega-city regions, the coastal concentration areas of floating population tended to geographically united as a whole, whereas the spatial distribution of migrants within each region varied significantly. The migrant concentration area in the Yangtze River Delta was the largest and its expansion was also the most salient. However, the floating population has growingly moved into provincial capitals and other big cities in the inland regions and its gravity center has moved northward for around 110 km during the study period. The spatial pattern of floating population has been formed jointly by the state and market forces in transitional China and the impacts of state forces have been surpassed by those of market forces in the country as a whole. The attractiveness of coastal cities and counties to the floating population comes mainly from the nonagricultural employment opportunities and public services, reflecting that long-distance and long-term migrants have moved coastward not only to gain employment but also to enjoy city life. By contrast, in the central and western regions, places with a higher economic development level and at a higher administrative level are more attractive to floating populations, demonstrating that the state remains to play an important role in allocating economic resources and promoting regional development in inland China. As the main body of new urban residents, the floating LIU Tao et al.: Spatial patterns, driving forces, and urbanization effects of China's internal migration 237 population has contributed substantially to the elevation of the urbanization levels of migrant-sending and -receiving places, by 20.0% and 49.5% respectively. Compared with extensively investigated interprovincial migrants, intra-provincial migrants have higher intention and ability to permanently live in cities and thus might become the main force of China's urbanization in the coming decades. The internal migration has also reshaped China's urban system in terms of its hierarchical organization and spatial structure.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial patterns, driving forces, and urbanization effects of China’s internal migration: County-level analysis based on the 2000 and 2010 censuses

Liu

Cao

et al. 2015

J. Geogr. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Other studies have looked at the impacts of political incentives (Lichtenberg and Ding, 2009) and institutional constraints such as the Hukou system (migration restrictions) on China's process of urbanization (Au and Henderson, 2006b;Bosker et al, 2012). Ongoing work focuses on the e ects of transportation infrastructure on city population decentralization (Baum-Snow et al, 2015) and on incomes (Banerjee et al, 2012;Faber, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographic determinants of China's urbanization

Christensen

McCord

2016

Regional Science and Urban Economics

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This study exploits a unique set of satellite and other spatially explicit data to examine the role of three exogenous geographic factors in shaping and constraining urbanization: biophysical land suitability for agriculture, distance to major ports and terrain slope. The setting is China in the 1990's, the most expansive process of urban growth in history. Our empirical results suggest that these geographical factors explain nearly half of the variation in urbanization levels. However, controlling for long-run levels, we nd a weakly negative relationship between agricultural land suitability and urban expansion from 1990-2000, which is consistent with the theoretical expectations that rising opportunity costs a ect the development of fertile lands. We examine heterogeneity in the e ects of geography using interactions with province xed e ects and, even more exibly, with a localized regression technique (geographically weighted regression). Our results indicate that agricultural land suitability has opposing e ects in di erent regions, for example leading to increased urban expansion in the Pearl River Delta and restricting urban expansion along the northern coast. These results should caution scholars against assuming homogeneous e ects of physical geography across regions when doing empirical analysis of urban dynamics.

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“…While the hukou system that binds people and place together with an official residency registration requirement still exists, the mobility-constraining effects of the hukou have been gradually eroded (Bosker et al 2012). A growing number rural of migrants have moved to nearby or remote cities seeking economic opportunities, especially after the early 1990s (Zhao 2005).…”

Section: Rural-urban Migration and Migrant Labour Markets In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographic structure of migrant labor market in China: A case study of four city-regions in Fujian

Yun

et al. 2014

CSP

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This study attempts to examine how local migrant labour markets behave differently in regions with varying development levels and local economic characteristics, based on a 2009 migrant survey conducted in four case cities in Fujian province, China. The study reveals that earnings characteristics and the role of earnings determents vary greatly across geographic regions. Specifically, in the economically more developed region, the return to human capital is higher, the effect of primitive social networks is lower, and the effect of institutional and cultural barriers is weaker.Keywords: migrant labour market, regional development, human capital, social network, hukou. RésuméOn accorde dernièrement plus grande attention à la différenciation de l'espace économique et de son impact sur le travail migrant. Dans le contexte chinois, peu d'études se sont penchées sur les processus géographiques de la différenciation économique régionale des villes-régions et sur leur effet sur le marché du travail migrant. En analysant les données recueillies dans quatre villes étudiées de la province de Fujian en Chine en 2009, l'étude conclut que les caractéristiques du marché du travail migrant varient selon les conditions de développement économique régional, et surtout que les facteurs déterminant les gains contribuent de manière différente au travail migrant local selon le degré de développement économique régional. L'étude révèle que dans les régions, dont l'économie régionale est plus développée, le rendement du capital humain est plus élevé, l'effet du réseau social primitif est moindre et l'effet des obstacles institutionnels et culturels est plus faible.

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Relaxing Hukou: Increased labor mobility and China’s economic geography

Cited by 116 publications

References 36 publications

Spatial patterns, driving forces, and urbanization effects of China’s internal migration: County-level analysis based on the 2000 and 2010 censuses

Spatial patterns, driving forces, and urbanization effects of China’s internal migration: County-level analysis based on the 2000 and 2010 censuses

Geographic determinants of China's urbanization

Geographic structure of migrant labor market in China: A case study of four city-regions in Fujian

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