MIGRATIONS IN THE URBAN-RURAL HIERARCHY OF CHINA - INSIGHTS FROM THE MICRODATA OF THE 1987 NATIONAL SURVEY

After presenting a brief account of the societal context of China, the authors use the microdata of the 1987 National Population Survey to s tudy the migration behaviors of Chinese people in the mid-1980s. The a uthors' main concern is with the effects of the government migration p olicy, and the focus is on the migrations in the city/town/rural hiera rchy. There are two main findings. First, although the migration polic y resulted in a very low migration level and systematic distortions in migration schedules, its encouragement of downward migrations was ver y ineffective, whereas its control on rural-to-urban migrations was pa rtially weakened by the strong upward aspiration of rural families awa kened by recent economic reform. Consequently, net in-migration contri buted substantially to the growth both of city and of town populations . Second, although the level of education had a strong positive effect on the migration propensities both of males and of females in general , it had a strong negative effect on the migration propensities of fem ales at the time of marriage, a finding which suggests that the famili es at subsistence income level tended to marry their daughters to groo ms in other communities in order to reduce the risk of familial income shortfalls.