Generational differences in urban settlement intentions of rural-to-urban migrants in China: Exploring the role of farmland holding

ABSTRACT

This paper explored the role of farmland holding in urban settlement intentions of rural-to-urban migrants in China by decomposing the difference in urban settlement intentions between younger and older generations of rural-to-urban migrants. Using nationally representative data from the 2017 National Internal Migrants Dynamic Monitoring Survey (n = 90,072), we found that while farmland holding had a significant negative impact on urban settlement intentions proxied by permanent settlement intention (PSI) and hukou transfer intention (HTI), this impact was more pronounced for older-generation migrants than for new-generation migrants. In particular, the urban settlement intentions differential between younger and older generations of migrants could be attributed to numerous offsetting proxies, with farmland holding status serving as an important contributor to the PSI and HIT differences. The equalization of farmland ownership between generations provided a possible way to narrow the gap in urban settlement intentions between the younger and older generations of rural migrants in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Farmland holding
• settlement intentions
• rural-to-urban migrants
• multivariate decomposition

Notes

¹ In the Chinese context, rural-to-urban migrants born after 1980 are generally defined as the younger generation or new-generation migrants, while those born before 1980 are classified as the older generation migrants (Y. Chen & Wang, 2015).

² Considering the possible differences in opportunity costs of holding rural lands among different groups (Gu et al., 2020), we have also examined the potential heterogeneity in the impact of farmland holding by migrant groups, including (i) gender, (ii) education, and (iii) the status of wages (Appendix Table A1). With respect to the impact of farmland holding on HTI, we found no evidence of heterogeneity in these three dimensions. However, we found that education and wage significantly attenuated the negative impact of farmland holding on PSI. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that highly educated/well-paid rural-to-urban migrants are more likely to engage in non-agricultural work in cities, which also means that their opportunity cost of settling in rural areas is higher.