OVER THE LAST two decades, a new demographic phenomenon in China has
attracted increasing attention in academic journals, newspapers, and magazines.
The “floating population,” or liudong renkou, refers to the large and
increasing number of migrants without local household registration status
(hukou). The growth of this population group reflects fundamental social
and demographic changes in Chinese society since the early 1980s. It would
have been very difficult to imagine such a large number of individuals living
outside of their places of household registration 30 years ago, for the
simple fact that one could not survive in cities without local hukou status at
that time. China’s market reforms since the late 1970s have significantly
weakened the government’s control over geographic mobility and its ability
to enforce the hukou system. Despite the demographic importance of
this population, estimates of its size are wide ranging (Cai et al. 2001), and
little is known about its impact on communities of origin and destination.
This article provides a description of China’s floating population using
the most authoritative source of Chinese data, the 2000 Chinese Population
Census (PCO 2002). Because the last census that contained information on
migration was conducted in 1990, what is known about migration between
1990 and 2000 is based on national sample surveys (e.g., the 1995 China One
Percent Population Sample Survey) or regionally based surveys such as the
sample surveys of floating populations conducted in Beijing and Shanghai.
These sources have yielded insights into the causes and consequences of China’s
floating population (Ma 2001; Roberts 2002; Rozelle et al. 1999; Wang et al.
2002; Zhao 1999); however, surveys are not well suited to describing broad
country-wide patterns.
The release of tabulations from the 2000 census affords the opportunity
to update knowledge of China’s floating population and to identify new patterns of migration that have emerged during the late 1990s (PCO 2002).
Data from the 2000 census show that the intercounty floating population
during 1995–2000 was nearly three times larger than the intercounty permanent
migrant population.1 In addition, the size of the floating population
has increased by a much greater proportion between 1990 and 2000
than the size of the permanent migrant population. We argue that study of
China’s floating population is important for at least three reasons. First, these
floating migrants, because they have no local household registration status,
are not afforded the full benefits of citizenship. For example, certain occupations
are reserved for local residents, pension and medical care are usually
not available to floating migrants, and the children of such migrants
are not allowed to enroll in local public schools. Thus the well-being of this
population should be a major concern for social scientists and policymakers.
Second, much of this population results from a movement from rural to
urban areas in response to the rising urban demand for cheap labor, particularly
in the rapidly industrializing coastal regions. The floating population
will strongly affect both China’s patterns of urbanization and its population
distribution among regions. Third, the floating population has begun
to play a vital role in economic development and income growth in rural
China, through remittances as well as entrepreneurial activities by return
migrants (see Ma et al. 2004).
We begin by describing new features of the 2000 Population Census
of China relevant to migration and compare the 2000 data with data from
the 1990 census. Our analysis covers both intercounty and intracounty floating
migrants but with a focus on the former. Intercounty migration is more
responsive to interregional economic differentials, driven by China’s recent
market reforms, and much of the literature on China’s floating population
is concerned with intercounty movement. We identify trends in the floating
population in China from 1982 to 2000 and note differences in data
definitions across different data sources. We then describe the size and distribution
of the floating population by province in 2000 and changes in the
proportions of interprovincial and intraprovincial migration from 1990 to
2000. We also examine the origins of the floating migrant population and
the destinations (city, town, and rural) that migrants choose. Using microlevel
data from the 2000 census, we compare the extent to which the reasons
for migration between 1995 and 2000 differ by hukou status, sex, and
intercounty versus intracounty migration.