Drawing on data from 1987 China 1% Population Sample Survey, 1990 China Population Census, and 1995 China 1% Population Sample Survey, the proposed project will measure different forms of migration (interprovincial, intraprovincial, temporary, permanent, and rural to urban) systematically between 1982 and 1995. The project will also test a set of hypotheses derived from market transition theory and network theory of migration. In addition, the project will examine the growth of foreign investment, rural enterprise, and urban-rural income inequality during the same period and measure their impact on different forms of migration. Patterns of emigration from China will also be described and modeled using data from 1990 and 1995. This project will provide the most comprehensive and up to date measures of migration patterns in China during a period of rapid social and economic transformation. It will shed light on our theoretical understanding and expectations of changes and mechanisms of migration behavior in former state socialist societies. The project has a unique longitudinal design in that it measures individual migration behavior and structural level changes (such as foreign investment and income inequality) simultaneously and therefore the impact of how structural level factors affect migration behavior can be examined. Finally, by assessing the impact of rural enterprise development on migration, this project has important policy implications for China and for other less developed countries in the process of rapid urbanization.
