Spatial Distribution of Migration and Economic Development: A Case Study of Sichuan Province, China

Abstract

Abstract:The spatial distribution of China's rapid growth in population and economic development is uneven, and this imbalance leads to migration. However, the literature concerning migration in China has been primarily focused at the provincial scale and on eastern parts of the country. Relatively few studies have examined migration between counties and these rarely involve poor areas, and even more rarely involving out-migration areas. Using statistical data, this study analyzes the spatial correspondence between population distribution and economic development in Sichuan with an index, the Correspondence of Population and Economy (CPE). We also build a regression model of net-migration to analyze the driving forces of migration. The results include the following: (1) The distribution of population, population density, GDP, and GDP growth are all similar, and the high value areas are mainly concentrated in eastern Sichuan; (2) The number of counties that are balanced in CPE dropped from 30 to 12 from 2005 to 2012, but the counties did not overlap; (3) Most in-migrants come from Sichuan itself, and in-migration areas are primarily concentrated in cities; (4) In the regression model, the four economic factors have a positive influence on net-migration, but rural employment has a negative influence; (5) CPE has a weak negative correlation with net-migration.

Do Administrative Boundaries Matter for Uneven Economic Development? A Case Study of China's Provincial Border Counties

“…However, LNLFPR was removed from the model because of non‐significance, which is different from previous results (Li and Fang ). Perhaps this difference can be explained by the population immigration theory, which posits that the labor force tends to migrate toward developed regions due to greater employment opportunities and higher income (Yang, Han, and Song ), and for the underdeveloped areas of China, which are subject to difficulties such as poor traffic conditions, population agglomeration is less likely (Wang et al ). This inference can also explain the negative significance of LNPD: because of more intense out‐migration in provincial border counties than in non‐provincial‐border areas, LNPD does not have a positive effect on economic growth, which is different from the results of research involving national borders (Dimitrov et al ).…”

Research on the spatial distribution and Geographical Environmental of Grotto Temples in Southern Shaanxi of China by ArcGIS

“…This suggests that the distribution of grottoes is closely related to river valleys and is in uenced by them. [21]…”

Balancing Population Distribution and Sustainable Economic Development in Yangtze River Economic Belt of China

“…This paper chose to apply the index of consistency of population and economy (CPE) to gauge regional economic disparities. CPE is an important indicator which indicates the degree of consistency between the population distribution and economic development of a region [11,12,14]. There are relatively few studies that use CPE to measure region disparities, but those did show that inconsistency between the population distribution and economic development tend to enlarge regional disparities [15,19].…”

“…The limitations of the existing literature [11][12][13][14][15][16] are mainly in two aspects. First, there is no theoretical explanation for the relationship between population distribution and economic development inconsistency and regional imbalance in economic development.…”