How does perceived environmental pollution affect migration interests: adapt or flee?

ABSTRACT

We utilized the China Genuine Progress Indicator Survey, a unique national survey data from China, to explore the effects of individuals’ perceived pollution on their migration interests. Results show a significantly positive effect of perceived environmental pollution on an individual’s migration interests. A higher level of perceived pollution increases the possibility of migration by 6.5%. Meanwhile, adaptive behaviours such as using facemasks, air cleaners, or water cleaners could not be alternatives to migration. In particular, well-educated, young, high-income groups, as well as those engaged in professional and technical work, are more affected by perceptions about environmental pollution. They are likely to show higher levels of perceived pollution, which could possibly lead to the brain drain effect. Moreover, people’s environmental attitudes have moderating effects on the migration interests triggered by pollution. Our focus on potential population outflow can bear new implications for the formulation of forward-looking environmental policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental pollution
• perceived severity
• migration interests
• heterogeneous effects
• China

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the treasurable suggestions from Prof. Tianyu Wang from Renmin University of China and the assistant work from Wanzhen Xing. We also appreciate the valuable suggestions from anonymous reviewers and editors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ We would like to clarify that the CGPiS 2017 and CHFS 2017 are joint surveys, which are different parts of one questionnaire. Therefore, CHFS 2019 uses the same unique ID as in CGPiS 2017.

² Available at: https://www.aqistudy.cn/historydata/.

³ Available at: http://data.epmap.org/product/water/.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71773010]; Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of Ministry of Education of China [21XJA790003]