Determinants of Internal Migrants’ Return Migration Decisions: Evidence from China

• In Event: 20881 - Section on Labor and Labor Movements Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1: Documenting Labor Inequalities

Abstract

Since 1978, China's reform and opening up, with the rapid progress of urbanization, the scale of internal migration in China has expanded significantly. Most migrants are from rural, and the migratory direction is usually from rural to urban, the central or the western region (economically less developed region) to the eastern region (economically more developed region). However, with the scale of urban population restriction and the continuous economic growth in the central and western region, the phenomenon of the return migration has become increasingly prominent. According to the National Labor Migrants Monitoring Survey Report, the proportion of labor migrants in the total labor has declined, from 61.76% in 2013 to 59.35% in 2023; from the perspective of migratory direction, labor migrants are continually returning to the central and western regions. Therefore, it is important to identify who is willing to return and what factors influence the return migration’s decision, which are significant for understanding the spatial pattern of population distribution and formulating the regional development policy. This study uses 2016 & 2018 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) to investigate what factors have impact on return decision and discuss the heterogeneity in terms of individual perspective and regional perspective. This study estimates the effect on economics factors, public factors, social services factors and environments factors on return decision of migrants, and discusses the heterogeneities in terms of individual and regional perspective.

Authors

• Shike Li, Nankai University

• Weimin Chen, Nankai University