Permanent Migrants in China: Hukou Origin and Economical Integration

Xiaozhou Wang, Pennsylvania State University
Glenn Firebaugh, Pennsylvania State University
Sal Oropesa, Pennsylvania State University

The massive rural-urban migration in China since the late 1970s has persistently attracted the attention of social scientists, producing a large number of studies concerning the multiple facets of the migration process. However, surveying the existing literature we find that researchers focus almost entirely on the temporary rural migrants, leaving the permanent rural migrants largely understudied. The integration of this group in their destination, a question important in its own, was rarely touched. Thus in this paper we try to advance the current knowledge on the permanent rural migrants through a systematic analysis of their economic integration in urban China. Our preliminary analysis shows that, among men, permanent rural migrants earn as much as the urban migrants, both exceeding the urban non-migrants. However, controlling age, education and other characteristics, the rural-migrant advantage disappears, whereas urban migrants still enjoy higher income than the rural migrants as well as the urban non-migrants.