An Empirical Study Of Happiness Change And Its Influencing Factors During Rural-urban Migration Process

With the decreasing of demographic dividend nowadays in China, population redistribution can determine rise and fall of cities. The "game" of attracting rural-urban labor forces not only exists between places people move out from and move into, but also exists between large cities and small towns. Existing studies have shown that migrants living in a city with higher SWB is more likely to have stronger desire to stay in the city, which means that importance of enhancing subjective well-being during the process of rural-urban migration is self-evident.Previous literature has wonderful response on China’s rural-urban migration with depth and details, but systematic thinking with framework on this topic hasn’t shown up. Argument like "two-stage theory" or "three-stage theory" is more likely used in similar analysis. In addition, little domestic literature has been focused on the effect that rural-urban migration has on subjective well-being. There are few comprehensive studies concerning about whether identity change during rural-urban migration process will cause the change of subjective well-being. More attention has been paid to key participants during this process, in another word, rural-urban migrants.On the basis of existing literature, using CHIP 2008 database, systematic thinking with framework will be proposed in this thesis to analyze the effect rural-urban migration process on subjective well-being among five identities which occur in this process. Relative factors that influence the effect will also be studied in the thesis.It turns out from the thesis that phenomenon of" happiness valley " or "happiness drain" shows up during rural-urban migration process, which mainly exists in so called "temporary migration" (when migrants leave their hometown but can’t actually stay in the city). Result also shows that rural-urban migrants shall achieve higher level of subjective well-beingwhen they get "hukou" of city, which means that they can actually stay in the city and become permanent citizen of the place where they work and live, also subjective well-being level is higher when they move back to their original living place, which may be strange the first time you look at. It is partly related to relative income and reference group. In a detailed way, when rural-urban migrants live in the city, their reference group are people who are born and raised in the city; when they move back, their reference group are those who haven’t migrant from their hometown. Moreover, subjective well-beinglevel is shown highest among five identities when they moving back.Further study shows that many significant factors have effect on "happiness drain" phenomenon including demographic variables, psychological variables, medical and social insurance variables, house finance and income variables, social support variables, life events and job factors. It is worth noting that, despite the existence of "happiness drain" in rural-urban migration, rural-urban migration still provides one way to improve subjective well-being level among potential migrants (farmers). In another word, after the completion of "permanent migration", their level of subjective well-being will significantly improve. Furthermore, even if they haven’t completed "permanent migration", but choose to move back, their level of subjective well-being shall also significantly improve compared to those who hasn’t had the experience of migration.Based on findings of the thesis, in order to make the pursuit of happiness become an equal experience, methods can be proposed to bridge the gap from the following aspects. To begin with, level and usage rate of medical insurance should be improved, and social-security benefits should be enhanced. Secondly, increasing income of rural-urban workers in the city and narrowing relative income gap should be on the list. Finally, signing rate of labor contract should be improved to protect their legitimate rights and benefits. All in all, existence of the household registration system ("hukou") has distorted income distribution, social welfare system and labor markets, which means the abolition of household registration shackles should be on agenda, however, the fact is that there is still a long way to go.