Labour market outcomes, migration intentions of rural-urban migrants and return migration in China

ix, 160 leaves : ill. ; 29 cmIt has been widely documented that migrant labourers have made great contributions to the urban economy of China; as well, the explosive growth of rural-urban migrants has generated several "migration problems," such as growing social inequality in urban China. It is widely reported that a large number of migrants have returned to their places of origin, after several years of "urban life," and this trend has been accelerated after the global economic crisis after 2008. Consequently, the large number of return migrants have created many problems in the cities, such as labour shortage in the manufacturing industry, and also posed a huge challenge to the rural areas in the resettlement of these returnees. In sum, to understand both the migrants in destination cities and return migrants in their places of origin is of great importance for both urban and rural development in China. The research so far, on the understanding of migrants' behaviour and labour market outcomes in a multi-phased migration process, seems highly controversial and therefore, insufficient. This study, based on migrant survey data collected in Fujian Province, and return migrant interview data collected in Sichuan and Jiangxi Provinces, explores migrant labour market outcomes in the cities, as well as their geographical differentiation; migrant return intentions, and their gender differentiations; return behaviour and the resettlement situations of actual returnees. The results show that the multi-phased migration process of rural migrants in China is synthetically shaped by macro, meso, and micro factors, and by the interactions between these factors. To be more specific, findings of this study indicate that migrant labour markets in urban China are largely geographically differentiated according to several regional characteristics. The study also finds that a large proportion of rural-urban migrants intends to return to their places of origin. As well, their return intentions are significantly gender-differentiated. Finally, the resettlement situations of return migrants are closely connected to their migration experience