Social Integration Of Rural-Urban Migrants In China: Current Status, Determinants And Consequences

Rural-urban migrants have made great contributions to development of Chinese economyand society. However, these migrants are far from being integrated into the urban societies.They are still outsiders and one of the most disadvantaged group in city societies. A newgeneration of migrants is gradually replacing the old. Attitudes and behaviors of the newgeneration have changed a lot, which makes the problem of migrant integration into the mainsociety in cities be even more urgent. With the number of rural-urban migrants increasing inthe process of industrialization and urbanization in China, migrant integration is not only achallenging issue in the field of public administration, but also a crucial problem for theharmonious society construction. Using data from a2009survey of rural-urban migrants andbased on conceptualization of social integration for rural-urban migrants, we investigate thecurrent status, determinants and consequences of rural-urban migrants’ social integration.First, this dissertation charts the current status of migrant integration. Second, We analyzethe role of migrant network in social integration of rural-urban migrants by introducing amigrant-resident tie perspective. Third, we investigate the effects of social integration onmigrants’ mental health and intentions respectively.The main contributions of this dissertation are the following:1. Social integration for rural-urban migrants in China is multidimensionallyreconceptualized, based on which we chart the current status of migrant integration. Theconcept of social integration for rural-urban migrants in China in previous literature are notclearly and strictly defined, neither dimensions proprerly identified nor directions definitelyaddressed. In this dissertation, we define social integration of rural-urban migrants as thedecline of an intergroup distinction and its corollary cultural, socioeconomic andpsychological differences between rural-urban migrants and urban residents. Socialintegration of rural-urban migrants includes three dimensions: cultural integration,socioeconomic integration and psychological integration. Cultural and psychologcial integration are bidirectional, while socioeconomic integration is unidirectional. Byintroducing an urban resident perspective, our study provides a gauge to estimate rual-urbanmigrants’ social integration, which is helpful to accurately understand the status of migrnatintegration. Social integration of rural-urban migrants is still at a low level.“Integration” ismigrants’ favorite acculturation stategy. The types of “integration” and “assimilation”dominate the psychological integration. Institutional barriers are still the main factor that getmigrants trapped in the lower socioeconomic status.2. Migrant-resident ties have significant positive effects on social integration of rural-urbanmigrants. Previous research on both international and internal migration has paid much moreattention to kin-based and ethnic-based ties. However, there has been little study ofmigrant-resident ties. Our main finding is that migrant-resident ties have the potential to playa fundamental role in migrant integration: they have positive effects on cultural integrationand psychological integration. Their effects on socioeconomic integration are limitedbecause of the severe institutional barriers to migrant integration: migrant-resident ties onlyhave significant effects on migrants’ occupational status, but no effect on income and houseownership. From the perspective of urban residents, we find migrant-resident ties cansignificantly reduce social distance between rural-urban migrants and urban residents.Migrant-resident ties not only can improve migrant integration, but also be helpful to urbanresidents’ acceptance to migrants. The migrant-resident tie perspective is important tounderstand the process and pattern of migrant integration.3. Social integration plays an important role in migrants’ mental health. Previous studieshave revealed that socioeconomic integration have effects on migrants’ mental health,ignoring the relationship between cultural integration, psychological integration and mentalhealth. We find that cultural integration has significant effects on migrants’ mental health:those migrants who are more willing to maintain their own culture pattern in city, enjoy alower level of modernity, and can speak local dialect are more likely to be satisfied withtheir life; the higher level of modernity migrants enjoy, the less likely to be in depression.Psychological integration can significantly improve migrants’ mental health: those migrantswho have higher level of sense of belonging to cities and smaller social distance betweenmigrants and urban residents are more likely to be satisfied with life and less likely to be indepression. The strategies of cultural integration and the types of psychological integrationare significantly associated with migrants’ status of mental health, which prove that thebidirectional models are applicable to the study on rural-urban migrants in China.4. Cultural integration and psychological integration have significant effects on migrants’intentions for both the first generation and the new generation. The existing research on therole of social integration in migrants’ future occupational and residential choices pays muchattention to socioeconomic integration, lacking systematic examination of the relationshipbetween social integration and migrants’ intentions. Socioeconomic integration has the most influential effects on migrants’ intentions. However, cultural integration and psychologicalintegration play important roles in intentions of migrants for both generations and almostshow no generational difference. Maintaining own culture pattern and sense of belonging tocities are important predictors to migrants’ intentions: those migrants who tend to maintaintheir own culture pattern are more likely to return to farm, the second favourite choice arereturn to do nonfarm jobs; those migrants who have higher level of sense of belonging tocities are more likely to stay in cities, the second choices is to return to farm. While makingthe decisions of future occupational and residential choices, migrants not only take theirsocioeconomic stutas into consideration, but also cultural integration and psychologicalintegration are their major concerns.Finally, we provide some policy implications of our findings that might facilitate migrants’further social integration.