Impact of religious cultural similarity on internal migration: a regional perspective in contemporary China

Shukai Liu, Zhe Chen (), Wen Ma, Zhuo Chen and Yunsong Chen
Additional contact information
Shukai Liu: Nanjing University
Zhe Chen: Nanjing University
Wen Ma: Nanjing University
Zhuo Chen: Nanjing University
Yunsong Chen: Nanjing University

Palgrave Communications, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Although research has examined migrants’ attraction to religious environments in detail, the broader impact of loosely organized religions on migration patterns in highly secularized countries such as China has received relatively little attention. This study bridges this gap by developing a religious cultural similarity (RCS) index to quantify cultural similarities among 339 Chinese cities based on their distribution of religious sites. Analysis of 69,620 city pairs suggests that higher RCS between cities promotes migration in China. This effect varies according to regional religious setting: migrants from ancestor worship–dominated cities are least attracted by RCS. This study’s findings deepen our understanding of the cultural role of religion within secular contexts.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-025-05272-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-05272-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-05272-2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().