Mapping the Complex Logic of Urban Migrant Integration in China: A Regional-Based Perspective

• In Event: Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 12: Community and Connection

Abstract

As rapid urbanisation continues in China, urban migrants, whose destinations are urban areas, have become a central process through which urban places are produced and transformed. Under the institutional linkage between hukou status and access to employment as well as public services with regional variations, urban migrants’ opportunities in destination cities are still restricted to some extent, rendering their integration process uneven and place dependent. In this setting, this study argues that urban migrant integration should be understood as a multidimensional system characterised by inconsistent development, divergent interaction pathways and strong regional specificity, conceptualised here as Complex Logic. By shifting attention from outcomes to pathways, this concept extends social exclusion theory to capture how exclusion operates through interactions among dimensions rather than accumulating uniformly across them.
Using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) and focusing on urban migrants, factor analysis is first applied to identify latent dimensions of integration. The coupling and coordination degree model is then employed to assess the internal coherence of the integration system. To model integration as a system, structural equation modelling is followed by to examine the pathways and mechanisms linking different dimensions.
The findings display three main patterns. First, urban migrant integration in China is best characterised as a five-dimensional system at both national and regional levels. Second, the integration process is multithreaded, with advances in certain dimensions not necessarily accompanied by progress in others. Third, the structure and pathways of integration differ significantly across regions, reflecting variations in institutional arrangements and development contexts. Through Complex Logic, this study provides a more systematic understanding of urban migrant integration under China’s hukou system. By foregrounding pathways over outcomes and place over backdrop, it offers a relational and spatially grounded rethinking of social exclusion theory.

Author

• Zihan Chen, University of Birmingham