Using the data from the 1990 census, this thesis studies interprovincial
migration in China between 1985-90 and interprets these migrations in terms of
socioeconomic development and migration policies. The main findings included
the following.
1. Due to the relaxation of government intervention and the shifts of economic
activities from the interior to the east and from rural to urban areas, both strong
urban-ward and eastward trends characterize the interprovincial migrations.
2. Compared with females, males have greater migration propensities and their
migrations depend more on personal attributes and employment-related factors in
destinations than on local socioeconomic, especially living, conditions. Thus,
while female migrants show an unidirectional eastward trend, male migrants
dispaly not only a strong eastward but also a substantial westward trend.
3. Choice of migration reasons largely depends on both personal and place
attributes. For marriage and job transfer migrants, their migrations are mainly
oriented toward better living conditions and thus show a strong eastward trend.
However, since job transfer migrants are subject to the strongest government
control, their eastward trend was substantially weakened. For manual work &
commerce migrants, while the shortage of job opportunities is the strongest origin
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push factor, the availability of employment opportunities in the urban informal
labor market is the most important destination pull force. Thus, their migration
shows both significant eastward and westward tendencies.
4. As for migrations in the city-town-rural system, first, the government's
encouragement of downward migrations has little effect. Second, inter-city
migrations show a substantial eastward trend and represent the second largest
migration flow due to the greater ease of permanent lateral migration between
cities. Third, while government control on pennanent upward migration is still
effective, the temporary migration policy issued in 1984 helps make temporary
upward migrations from rural counties to cities the largest migration stream.
Finally, it is difficult to direct upward migration from cities to towns, because
towns have much fewer economic opportunities and lower quality of life than
cities.
5. With the application of the concept of the neutral migration process to the
observed migrations, first, for the seven provinces containing surplus labourers
and also constituting the largest net losers, not only their departure rates are
higher than the corresponding neutral levels, but they also get less than their fair
shares of migrants from other provinces. In this way, their employment pressure
could be expected to be alleviated gradually. Second, for most eastern developed
provinces, not only do they get more than their fair shares of migrants from other
provinces, but also their departure rates are lower than the corresponding neutral
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levels. As long as the gap of economic growth remains and the temporary
migration policy is still effective, the strong eastward tendency would be
inevitable. Finally, due to its remote location and low living standard, nine out
of twelve remote provinces show a higher departure rate than the corresponding
neutral level, reflecting their residents' strong will to depart. However, it is also
a welcoming sign that seven out of twelve remote provinces attract more than
their fair share of outmigrants (especially manual work & commerce outmigrants)
from provinces with surplus labourers.