Since the 1980s, the number of rural-to-urban migrants in China's cities has been estimated at one hundred million at any one time, i.e. more than the total population of any European country. Most of these are temporary migrants who return to their communities of origin. The effects on individuals, families, and communities in these places of origin are expected to be far-reaching and many-sided. This project will survey 300 households in three rural communities in Panzhihua Municipality, Sichuan Province, China, in order to describe and explain effects of recent labor migration from the communities at the individual, family, and community levels. At the individual level, the research will examine the health effects of migration and the changes in values stemming from exposure to urban society. At the family level, it will examine changes in family economy, in reproductive behavior, and in marriage practices. At the community level, it will examine changes in community leadership and in class stratification within the communities. The research will build upon previous survey research about family economy, family organization, individual educational and labor histories, and individual reproductive histories conducted in 1988 by the PI in collaboration with Sichuan University and the Panzhihua Artifacts Bureau.
The opportunity to return to communities that were studied in the late 1980s and to see what has changed since labor migration has become common presents a rare chance to observe migration effects against a known background of the communities' previous realities. In addition, because the three communities are so different, and because there differences are so well-documented, we can come to understand how a general social phenomenon such as migration has effected different communities differently.
The broader impacts of the research are related to the attention paid in the press and by international organizations to the working conditions of Chinese factory laborers, why they migrate and what effect their migration, the money they earn, and their return to their villages has on their lives and their families' lives. Knowing the broad range of effects, we should be better able to formulate policies toward investment in China and toward international labor relations. In addition, since two of the three villages to be studied are populated by members of minority ethnic groups, study of whether these migrants feel more or less integrated into Chinese society after their migration experience will help gauge the potential for increase or reduction of ethnic tensions, which are also a major worry for today's Chinese state.
