The Study Of Marketization, Social Network And Geographical Enclave Of Urban-rural Migrants

The reform and opening-up policy is the strong force of China's economic development, and flowing urban rural migrants is one of the important source of this power. We found that the urban rural migrants often rely on kin and land link relationship when choosing immigrated city and job, so it's easy to see “Geographical Enclave” phenomenon. To understand the “geographical enclave” phenomenon of Chinese urban rural migrants, and to explore the driven factors of “the People-centered urbanization”. This paper, using the data of RUMIC 2008 —2010, measures the “geographical enclave” level of urban rural migrants in 15 metropolis which are immigrants' main destinations, and compares the trend, for the sake of exploring how the marketization and social network affect the “geographical enclave” of urban rural migrants.We find the following results:(1) urban rural migrants' social network significantly affects their “geographical enclave” behavior. Because of their lack of human capital and the imperfect market institution, urban rural migrants rely on their social network for opportunities of employment and residence in city, resulting in the “geographical enclave” phenomenon;(2) with the advancement of marketization, urban rural migrants' dependence on “geographical enclave” through social network drop significantly and it facilitates them to form more reasonable “geographical enclave” level by the power of the market;(3) there are big differences in the use of social network and the “geographical enclave” level between provinces and cities in China. Compared to inland areas, urban rural migrants' dependence on social network and “geographical enclave” level is lower in the eastern coastal areas;(4) as time goes by, the urban rural migrants also have changed the use pattern of social network. When they goes out of village in an early stage, they rely more on strong ties with relatives, who provide supports in employment, residence and various aspects in life. When they migrate out for several years and have improved their own human capital and social capital, weak ties with friends also started to play a role. The urban rural migrants can choose to more suitable workplaces under the information from weak ties.