Internal Migration in Canada

Abstract

<p>Using the micro data of China's 1987 National Population Survey, this thesis is one of the first comprehensive studies of internal migration in China. Migration is still under government control in China, despite its growing importance in the nation's development. An understanding of China's migration process and its relationship with development is strongly needed. The thesis has four main parts, integrated in such a way that the migration process in China can be viewed from various important aspects. The first part is the characterization and interpretation of the migrations in the three strata (city, town and rural county) of China's urban/rural settlement system. Migration in China has several distinct characteristics, including very low migration level, large sex differential, unusual age patterns, and very high migration efficiency. The second part is the explanation of the migration behaviors of Chinese young adults aged 17-29 by personal factors and ecological variables. A multivariate framework (nested logit model) has been extended so that the highly selective migration behaviors can be explained in a broad context of urbanization and interregional population redistribution. The major finding is that despite government migration control, the migration behaviors of Chinese young adults in the mid-1980s were clearly responsive to market forces in a sensible way. The third part focuses on the education selectivity in the migrations of the Chinese young adults and its effects. The better educated Chinese young adults were more prone to migrate and this selectivity has decreased the quality of the human capital of rural areas, but has not improved the human capital of cities. The last part turns to the problem of spousal residence separations in China. The surprisingly high incidence of such separation among the married Chinese young adults was a result of the government migration control and other factors.</p>