Interprovincial Migration, Population Redistribution, and Regional Development in China: 1990 and 2000 Census Comparisons

Abstract

Until recently, migration has had a limited role to play in China's space economy because of central-planning logic and mechanisms. Mobility increases and economic restructuring since the 1980s, however, call for new conceptualizations of migration. Using interprovincial migration data from China's 1990 and 2000 censuses, I analyze migration rates, migration effectiveness, population growth, net migration flows, and spatial focusing of migration. The analysis supports the notions that migration is an increasingly effective factor of population redistribution and that it has a strong relationship with regional development. While these relationships have been documented in many other parts of the world, they have been less well addressed in the case of China. Regional divergence in economic development during the 1990s was accompanied by a marked increase in interprovincial migration and sharply concentrated migration flows, especially from relatively poor central and western provinces to the rapidly growing eastern region. These results suggest that migration theories that draw from experiences of capitalist economies may be of increased relevance to China.

*This research was partially supported by a UCLA Academic Senate research grant. I would like to acknowledge Jiantao Lu for research assistance and Chase Langford for cartographic assistance. I would also like to thank Truman Hartshorn and seven anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the paper.

Key Words:

• migration
• regional development
• population redistribution
• China
• transitional economy

Notes

*This research was partially supported by a UCLA Academic Senate research grant. I would like to acknowledge Jiantao Lu for research assistance and Chase Langford for cartographic assistance. I would also like to thank Truman Hartshorn and seven anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the paper.

Sources: State Statistical Bureau (1992); National Bureau of Statistics (2002).

Notes: Tibet is excluded and Chongqing is combined with Sichuan.

Sources: State Statistical Bureau (1990, 1992); National Bureau of Statistics (2002); and China Statistical Yearbooks for various years.

Notes: Tibet is excluded and Chongqing is combined with Sichuan. Population growth due to natural increase is computed with respect to the published yearly natural increase rates and the year-end population of every year within the period. Year-end population for 2000 is not reported in publications by the National Statistical Bureau and is therefore estimated by the average of 1999 and 2001 figures.

*significant at the 0.05 level.

**significant at the 0.01 level.

Sources: State Statistical Bureau (1990, 1992); National Bureau of Statistics (2002);

China Statistical Yearbooks for various years.

Notes: See Table 2.

Sources: State Statistical Bureau (1992); National Bureau of Statistics (2002).

Notes: Tibet is excluded and Chongqing is combined with Sichuan.

Sources: State Statistical Bureau (1992); National Bureau of Statistics (2002).

Notes: Tibet is excluded and Chongqing is combined with Sichuan. CV=Coefficient of variation.

¹ In this article, the term province refers to provincial-level unit; interprovincial migration refers to migration among all thirty-one provincial-level units (see also Figure 1).

² In this article, the term county refers to all county-level units in China, including counties, county-level cities, and suburban counties and urban districts of prefecture-level cities. There are more than 2,000 counties in China.

³ In public and scholarly discourses, the term floating population is often used to refer to migrants in general, without providing specifics about their hukou status.

⁴ In the U.S census, those who move within counties are called movers.

⁵ Subcounty-level units include streets, towns, and townships. In broad terms, streets and towns are considered urban areas, and townships are considered rural areas.

⁶ As of September 2003, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics to the public do not permit separate analysis of intercounty moves and intracounty moves.

⁷ Though variations within provinces exist, the data show that the spatial changes at the provincial level are pronounced.

⁸ Note that Qinghai had the highest out-migration rate in the 1985–1990 period (Table 1). Its out-migration, however, was more than offset by in-migration to the province.

⁹ Using the same technique and comparing data from the 1987 One-Percent Population Survey and the 1990 census, He and Pooler (2002) found that the systemwide measure remained stable between the 1982–1987 and 1985–1990 periods. This suggests that increased spatial focusing is primarily a phenomenon of the 1990s.

¹⁰ Although Shanghai had the highest GDP per capita, its rate of economic growth between the 1980s and the 1990s was lower than that of Guangdong. This differential explains in part why Shanghai's rates of in-migration and net migration were lower than those of Guangdong.