China's Urbanization Dilemma: A Study on the Socioeconomic Integration of Rural Migrant Families

Problems with urbanization in China are becoming more pressing. For decades, the government has followed the unsustainable course of first restricting rural-urban migration and then excluding rural migrants from public services in an attempt to prevent chaos in cities. With changes in the macroeconomy and migration patterns in the twenty-first century, this strategy no longer makes social or economic sense. As a result, there has been a major reorientation of policy goal in the past few years toward making temporary rural migrants into permanent urban citizens. This dissertation examines the factors that influence migration decisions, experiences, and outcomes from the perspectives of rural migrant households in this time of “people-centered” urbanization. It builds on the body of literature that sees internal migrants in developing countries as going through a similar process of adaptation and assimilation against structural barriers. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry, I construct an explanatory framework for settlement intention, housing ownership, and access to education. The findings demonstrate the critical importance of non-economic considerations when family members are involved. Using the case study of one of the least developed provinces, I show the irreversibility of the urbanization process and the imperative to expand economic development to include equity goals. This dissertation contends that because both the state and migrant households in lower-tier cities have fewer choices, resources, and opportunities, dispersing migration from mega-cities as the central government is doing right now does not address the problems of poverty and exclusion among rural migrants and therefore does not constitute people-centered or high-quality urbanization as it is so proclaimed. Herein lies the dilemma. Provincial capitals and major prefectures in the less developed interior are – in a manner of speaking – the “last stop on this train”, where burden-shifting is no longer viable. As such, these cities should be equally important as sites of equitable urbanization. Furthermore, their development should serve to free up mobility so that migrants have more options about where to go rather than deter it