Investigating China's inter-prefecture migration from a place attractivity perspective, its spatial patterns, and demographic characteristics
Yaojun Zhang,
Danlin Yu and
Qiao Cen
Additional contact information
Yaojun Zhang: Renmin University of China
Danlin Yu: Montclair State University
Qiao Cen: Shanghai Bureau of Civil Servants
Demographic Research, 2019, vol. 41, issue 34, 1007-1020
Abstract:
Background: Urbanization has been regarded as a strategic process to alleviate rural poverty, support local economic growth, and facilitate national sustainable development in China. Scholars have long realized that urbanization is a comprehensive process that can be understood through studies of population migration among places where population flows occur. Objective: Place attractivity is a concept derived from the place interaction model, which measures the ability for urban areas to attract migrants, hence the “ability” of urbanization. By studying the spatial patterns of China’s place attractivity, the study attempts to depict the current migration and urbanization dynamics in China and support sustainable urbanization strategies in China. Methods: The Relative Intrinsic Attractivity (RIA) index provides an excellent quantification strategy to measure place attractivity. With data obtained at the prefecture level from China’s 2005 1% census sampling survey (the most recent of such data), the study calculated RIA for each prefecture units and various population groups. Results: The results suggest that cities in central China have the lowest place attractivity. There is a diverging trend of China’s place attractivity with a rather unbalanced urban system development. Cities of different sizes have a different place attractivity, with large cities having the highest attractivity. A city’s attractivity also varies between population groups. Contribution: The study suggests from a place attractivity perspective that urbanization in China requires careful coordination and planning. The top priority for China’s urbanization is to devise relevant policies and support rational and sustainable industrial development in small cities and towns to increase their attractivity.
Keywords: place; attractivity; spatial pattern; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol41/34/41-34.pdf (application/pdf)
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:dem:demres:v:41:y:2019:i:34
DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2019.41.34
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in Demographic Research from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Editorial Office ().