Spatio-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of urban floating population in China from 2011 to 2015

ABSTRACT

Although China’s urban floating population is mainly concentrated in developed cities, from the central and western cities to the eastern developed cities, but the characteristics of the floating population in different cities are significantly different. This paper systematically investigates the spatiotemporal characteristics and influencing factors of the floating population in different levels of cities. The results show that the regional imbalance to further strengthen, accumulation and dispersion trend has become increasingly obvious, liquidity is positively correlated and city level scale, and urban agglomeration and the core city is still polarization center of floating population. Flow range is closely related to urban hierarchy: the higher the intra-urban grade, the more tend to inter-provincial flow; the lower the city grade, the more tend to intra-urban mobility. Short-term (1-2 years) and long-term (more than 7 years) flow-time coexist. The short-term liquidity increases with the city grade, and the long-term liquidity decreases with the city level. Farmers are still the main body of the floating population. Younger age, lower education level, low-skilled, high gender ratio employees are the most basic demographic characteristics of the floating population, although there are differences between different cities. The main reason for affecting the floating population is seeking jobs and doing business.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban floating population
• spatial-temporal characteristics
• demographic characteristics
• dynamic monitoring data
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.