Rural-Urban Migration in China since 1978

By Yuchen Ge

Introduction

       In the past four decades, the People’s Republic of China has seen a historically unprecedented rural-urban migration that brought in numerous well-educated, permanent migrants from rural areas of their home provinces, which boosted both its urban growth and urbanization. This nationwide population movement is, to a large extent, attributable to the country’s rapid economic development since Deng Xiaoping implemented the reform and opening-up policy in 1978. However, by gradually widening the rural-urban income gap and raising the cost of cityward relocation for rural residents, rural-urban migration increases economic inequality across regions, resulting in the slowdown of urban growth over time and rural people’s growing reluctance to leave their native soil. Given the importance of rural-urban migration to China’s urban labor market and beyond, these downsides require prompt rectification of the domestic migration policy, specifically the hukou system, a household registration institution, by the government to ensure the sustainable development of the Chinese economy.

Pros of Rural-Urban Migration

       In the post-reform era, rural-urban migration, a phenomenon that arose under the rapid development of China’s economy, played an instrumental role in the country’s urbanization, contributing to most of its urban growth. It is widely considered an epoch-making episode in Chinese history, as such a large-scale population flow was barely imaginable during the Maoist period. From 1978 to 1999, around 174 million Chinese nationals migrated from the countryside to cities, accounting for 75% of the total growth of the urban population in this period (Zhang and Song 390). Their decision to relocate, mostly driven by economic motives, has not only made them more well-off than rural stayers of the same period but also drastically changed China’s population distribution across rural and urban areas. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China, the two decades after 1978 saw the proportion of the urban population in China rise from 18% to 31%, an increase of 222 million urban residents that is only slightly outnumbered by 280 million of the U.S. population at the turn of the century (Zhang and Song 386–387). Behind the remarkable impacts of this internal migration is China’s constantly growing economy which enriched a considerable portion of the country’s population. Since one of the guiding principles of Deng’s economic policy was to “let some people get rich first,” large cities, especially those in the coastal region like Shanghai and Shenzhen, were able to take the lead in the marketization reform and become economic powerhouses (Osnos). Attracted by their prosperity, hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants trapped in generational poverty have been naturally disposed to relocate to these cities in search of better living conditions and work opportunities. Considering that most rural residents in China could barely leave their birthplaces during the Maoist period, allowing them to move to economically more developed cities was generally beneficial for improving their economic well-being and promoting the national economy during the early stage of the reform. Under such circumstances, it stands to reason that the massive rural-urban migration since 1978 is “a consequence of China’s rapid economic growth, not vice versa” (Zhang and Song 399).

       Another advantage of rural-urban migration is that it creates a lasting positive externality in the urban labor market by absorbing a high-quality workforce willing to settle in perpetuity in nearby cities. The patterns of migration for rural people who intend to move to cities often differ greatly because of their places of origin, age, and social experience. Quantitative research conducted by Hu et al. points out the higher possibility for migrants with higher levels of education and more migration experience to establish themselves permanently in cities, as well as the inverse U-shaped relationship between age and the likelihood of permanent migration (70). Besides, permanent migrants “tend to stay within the home provinces” and can become “more adapted to urban lives” on account of their higher employment stability and earnings in comparison with those who migrate circularly (Hu et al. 70). Well-educated and experienced rural people who live in proximity to economically prosperous cities are most likely to engage in intraprovincial migration, acclimatize themselves to the urban environment with ease, and become permanent urban residents in the prime of their life. These attributes of permanent migration assist with the sustained growth of China’s urban economy and the added attraction of more rural migrants. The benefits of rural-urban migration, nevertheless, are sometimes felt differently among rural migrants and the native residents of recipient cities, as the latter tend to gain less from this internal migration than the former.

Cons of Rural-Urban Migration

       Since its inception in the early years of the reform, rural-urban migration has never been free of controversy. Aside from the benefits to urban development, it has also generated an abundance of social issues, most notably the increased economic inequality among people from different areas. Such a problem is reflected by the widening rural-urban income gap in the first two decades after 1978 that served as “a powerfully driving force of both inter- and intraprovince migration” which, if excessive, may cause a series of issues including unemployment and poverty in recipient cities (Zhang and Song 398). In line with this reasoning, economists such as Zhang and Song feared that the growing income disparity between rural and urban areas, which seemed to be reinforced by China’s admission to the World Trade Organization in 2001, would force more country-dwellers into the cities and worsen the aforementioned problems (399). Be that as it may, contrary to their anticipation, the trend went in the opposite direction in the following decade. Data from the annual surveys of the NBS demonstrate that although the quantity of rural migrant labor rose from 104 million to 168 million over the 2002-2015 period, the growth rate met an abrupt downturn from roughly 0.06% in 2010 to less than 0.01% in 2015 (Su et al. 142). Interprovincial workers, mostly employed in the urban service industry, are discouraged from engaging in migration when the rural-urban income gap is shortened over time, leading to the deceleration of urban population growth since 2010. The price of urban services is therefore raised by the decreased inflow of workforce from interprovincial migration, resulting in “a higher living cost in cities” that increases the burdens on rural people currently or potentially involved in cityward migration (Su et al. 143).

       The most noteworthy issue of economic inequality that occurs in rural-urban migration is associated with the hukou system, a national institution established in the 1950s to control the population flows across regions through household registration. In the post-reform period, this system continues to exist as a measure employed by urban authorities to differentiate the migrants from the native people to avoid overpopulation. Under this mechanism, only rural migrants who are either “rich or well educated” or “immediate family members of existing urban citizens” can be granted urban hukou and have the same entitlement to “permanent urban residency rights and associated social benefits” as the native residents of recipient cities (Hu et al. 64–65). Such a policy is more restrictive than urban citizens may suppose as it not only has systemic constraints on rural migrants’ access to quality employment, accommodations, and public services but also prevents them from sponsoring their families for relocation (Knight et al. 599). Facing the high cost of cityward migration, rural people who do not meet the requirements of obtaining urban hukou are less willing to move to cities than the older generation and prefer to stay in their birthplaces to make their living. Although plenty of rural stayers have managed to overcome institutional difficulties and prosper economically through “diversified livelihood strategies in terms of multiple job holding” in the past decade, the issue of decelerated growth in rural migrant labor and urbanization remains unsolved in most Chinese cities (Ye 8).

Policy Recommendations tackling Rural-Urban Migration

       Since rural-urban migration substantially benefits the Chinese economy by facilitating the growth of China’s urban population, enhancing the economic well-being of many rural residents, and providing the urban sector with a high-standard workforce, an overhaul of the government’s domestic migration policy is necessary to ensure a sufficient supply of rural migrants to the urban labor market. From the psychological perspective, the physical distance between one’s native soil to the urban destination is a key factor in determining whether individuals would feel disposed to engage in cityward migration since permanent migrants are more likely to adapt better to new environments that they are relatively more familiar with, such as small urban centers near their rural hometowns (Hu et al. 66). Based on this reasoning, Su et al. suggest that interprovincial relocation, a process that requires participants to attune themselves to unfamiliar cultures, dialects, and customs, is characterized by “a strong deterrent effect on migration” similar to the “border effect” observed in international migration (144). In that case, urban authorities in China should reduce their investment in the facilitation of interprovincial migration and instead attempt to create a better environment for intraprovincial migration by lowering the cost for rural workers to relocate to cities in their home provinces.

       To attract more rural migrants, it is also important to remove institutional barriers to migration through policy reforms. For instance, local governments can consider accelerating the accreditation of urban settlements, expanding the coverage of the social security system, and increasing their outlay on essential public services like “affordable housing, health care and education” (Su et al. 155). All these measures should serve to facilitate the “weakening of the hukou system,” a task that can hardly be realized on a national scale without the coordination of all levels of administration (Knight et al. 599). Moreover, the encouragement of cityward migration can add positive short-run stimulus to the urban economy through a higher human capital stock and more economic activities (Su et al. 155). In the long run, this strategy is conducive to the sustainable development of China’s economy by decreasing economic inequality among citizens of different origins and extending the equalization policy to all residents within the jurisdiction of urban governments.

Conclusion

       The unprecedented rural-urban migration in China as a result of economic development since 1978 has greatly facilitated the country’s process of urbanization and created dramatic changes to its urban labor market by bringing in plenty of high-quality permanent migrants from the countryside. Meanwhile, the higher economic inequality that this population flow produces under the hukou system increases the cost of relocation and prevents many rural people from settling in cities, leading to slower urban growth in the last decade. For sustainable economic development, the Chinese government should consider thoroughly revamping its internal migration policy centered on the hukou system to ensure the sufficiency of rural migrants in the urban labor market, thereby achieving a “long term balance between the rural and the urban” in the end (Ye 9).

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