Title: Move Odyssey in China: rural-urban migration and subsequent relocation in cities

Authors: Bingxue Han

Addresses: School of Urban-Rural Planning and Landscape Architecture, Xuchang University, 461000, China

Abstract: It may be a long series of wanderings or adventures filled with notable experiences and hardships that a rural person in current China migrates into urban area and attempts to relocate in it. Hukou conversion, family separation, and job opportunity become the three main barriers for rural migrants transform into urban citizen. Academic identification has verified there is full of risks for the expectations and consequences of residential mobility in China as to a rural family. An empirical exploration is necessary to examine the role of hukou conversion and marriage in the mechanism of residential mobility. However, lack of the most appropriate dataset, CHARLS dataset becomes the second-best. The empirical results reflect residential mobility dynamics in China have destroyed the original system of rural family. The waiting time of hukou conversion has exhaust youth and vigour of migrants. The regression analysis provides a further insight of economic variables including years prepared for moving within the county/city and years prepared for moving into the county/city. The subsequent discussion expands understanding millions of migrants' adverse situations, the positive and negative impact of multiple social forces on their lives. In the end, direction of future research is discussed.

Keywords: residential mobility; cities; hukou conversion; relocation; rural-urban migration; rural migrants; CHARLS; China; family separation; job opportunities; marriage; social forces.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRM.2014.059697

International Journal of Migration and Residential Mobility, 2014 Vol.1 No.1, pp.12 - 27

Published online: 21 Jun 2014 *