Understanding the intergroup relations of migrants in China

Abstract

The existing integration literature in the Chinese context has mostly focused on migrants' relations with receiving contexts, such as place attachment and settlement intention. Few attempts have been made to investigate migrants' relations with local residents, a better indicator of migrants' integration. Based on the 2014 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this study scrutinises how environmental factors and individual factors affect migrants' intergroup relations in China. The analysis shows that migrants who live in more migrantconcentrated neighbourhoods and who stay in more developed cities with a higher presence of migrants tend to suffer from worse intergroup relations.This implies that no matter at which level the migrant concentration exists, it can hinder migrants' intergroup relations. Moreover, both higher socioeconomic status and acculturation can significantly improve migrants' intergroup relations, indicating that acculturation also plays an important role in the relatively homogeneous society.

Escaping from the identity enclave: Social inclusion events and floating migrants' settlement intention in China

“…This research draws on the theories of social capital to examine the relationship between migrants' participation in SIE and their settlement intention. While plenty of prior studies have discussed the influence of social capital from the perspective of social bonds and social participation on migrants' moving decisions (Mohabir et al, 2017;Sheng et al, 2019;Wu, 2012;Xu et al, 2022) In conclusion, the findings from our research could be informative for scholars and policymakers to understand how participation in SIE could help migrants in China to stay. Particularly against the hukou system, the process for migrants to gain self-perceived inclusion could be understood as an opportunity to reconstruct their identity and escape from the identity enclave in the destination city.…”

“…This contradicts some assumptions based on kin-based and ethnicity-based ties for migrant networks in host cities (Wu & Logan, 2016;Yue et al, 2013). This may be because low-skill migrants tend to live in neighbourhoods with worse intergroup relations, which would limit migrants' opportunities to interact with mainstream society (Xu et al, 2022).…”

“…Since migrants are oriented towards social networks that are kinship-or hometown-based, they inevitably develop bonding social capital (Wu & Logan, 2016;Yue et al, 2013). At the same time, migrants develop relationships with other migrants coming from different backgrounds or even local residents (Wang & Kemeny, 2022;Xu et al, 2022), and they also develop bridging social capital. Furthermore, another distinction in social capital is that migrants with different socioeconomic profiles would also seek different types of social capital.…”

“…Current studies in China tend to generalise social capital into migrantmigrant and migrant-local relations (Sheng et al, 2019;Wu, 2012;Xu et al, 2022). However, this generalisation could be refined.…”

“…Another contribution is the measurement of bonding social capital and bridging social capital. Previous research generalised bonding social capital and bridging social capital as migrant‐migrant and migrant‐local relations (Sheng et al, 2019; Wu, 2012; Xu et al, 2022). Our research refines this generalisation by measuring bonding social capital and bridging social capital using migrants' participation in different types of SIE, such as hometown‐based or social group‐based ones.…”