Effect of hukou Accessibility on Migrants’ Long Term Settlement Intention in Destination

Abstract

Migrants’ long-term settlement intention in urban areas has been emphasized by both policy makers and researchers in promoting urbanization and coordinating regional economic development. This study advances the body of knowledge by investigating the effect of what E.S. Lee has proposed as ‘intervening obstacles’ in the ‘push-and-pull’ theory—the difficulty in obtaining hukou in migration destination, on their long-term settlement intention in urban areas. Logistic regressions were applied to examine the effect of urban registered residence system (the hukou system) accessibility on migrants’ long-term settlement intention in urban areas, as well as the determinants of subjective evaluated difficulty in obtaining urban hukou, based on a nation-wide large-scale survey in 46 Chinese cities. Our results suggest that difficulty in obtaining urban hukou does play an important role in shaping country-wide population movement. However, the negative impact of hukou difficulty on migrant workers’ residence intention is not linear, and only when the threshold in obtaining hukou is too high and difficult to achieve will migrant workers choose to return to their hometown in the long term. Moreover, the subjective evaluation of difficulty is further influenced by personal capability and living conditions in cities. This study provides pragmatic implications for administrations from either push side or pull side to improve habitant-related development strategies.