Migration, Policy and Household Strategies in China, 1985-2004

人口流动性的增加既是过去二十年来许多前社会主义经济体经历的结构性变化的驱动因素，也是结构变化的结果。主要基于资本主义经济的关于移民的传统思维，无法完全解释中国等转型经济体最近移民激增的原因。政策调整，中国经济改革的一个标志，以及家庭层面的战略，是解释中国农村向城市迁移的核心。该项目将记录过去二十年来中国在迁徙数量、方向和构成方面的主要变化，并确定迁徙模式的决定因素以及这些决定因素如何变化。调查员将研究政策变化，特别是与户籍(户口)改革相关的政策变化如何影响移民的决策和过程。该项目将侧重于导致决定不迁移、迁移或返回的家庭战略，以及这些战略是如何受到政策、性别关系和意识形态、生命周期事件和其他家庭考虑因素的影响的。通过比较和分析中国1990年和2000年人口普查的数据，这位调查者将查明人口迁移及其决定因素发生了怎样的变化。调查员将对两个主要流动人口来源省(四川和安徽)的7000户农村家庭进行调查，旨在记录可能发生的多段迁移、循环迁移和回流迁移。这项调查的数据将有助于使用事件历史技术进行分析，从而能够调查政策变化和家庭因素对移徙决策的影响。调查员还将对10年前接受采访的300户农村居民进行深入访谈。这些访谈也将提供纵向信息和定性材料，以丰富对家庭内部的社会和权力关系，他们与国家和地方政策的关系，以及他们对与移民有关的家庭战略的影响的了解。这一项目将为了解中国庞大的“流动人口”，以及发展中国家和转型国家的城乡流动人口提供洞察力。这些移民是这些经济体中城市和农村社会和经济发展轨迹的关键。该项目的研究结果将在研究人员和政策制定者讨论有关移民、城市化、劳动力、就业以及政治和社会不稳定的政策和问题时提供信息。该项目将促进美国和中国学者之间的研究合作，为国际学生提供研究机会，帮助确定本科生和研究生教学中的方法和概念改进，并使广大受众能够接触到中国农村的生活故事和经历。

Increase of human mobility is both a driver and an outcome of the structural changes that many formerly socialist economies have experienced over the past two decades. Conventional thinking on migration, based primarily on capitalist economies, cannot fully explain the recent dramatic surge in migration in transitional economies such as China. Policy adjustments, a hallmark of China's economic reforms, and household-level strategies, are central to explaining rural-urban migration in China. This project will document the major changes in the volume, direction, and composition of migration in China in the past two decades and identify the determinants of the patterns of migration and how these determinants have changed. The investigator will examine how policy changes, especially those related to the household registration (hukou) reforms, have affected the decision-making and process of migration. The project will focus on household strategies that led to the decisions to not migrate, migrate, or return, and how these strategies have been shaped by policy, gender relations and ideology, life-cycle events, and other household considerations. By comparing and analyzing data from China's 1990 and 2000 censuses, the investigator will pinpoint how migration and its determinants have changed. The investigator will conduct a survey of 7,000 rural households in two major origin provinces of migrants (Sichuan and Anhui), which aims at documenting possible multiple episodes of migration, circular migration, and return migration. Data from this survey will facilitate analysis using event-history techniques, thus enabling investigations of the effects of policy change and household considerations on migration decision-making. The investigator will also conduct in-depth interviews of 300 rural households that were previously interviewed 10 years ago. These interviews will likewise provide longitudinal information as well as qualitative material that will enrich the understanding of social and power relations within households, their relations with national and local-level policies, and their impacts on household strategies related to migration.This project will provide insights for understanding not only the sizable "floating population" in China but rural-urban migrants in developing and transitional countries. These migrants are the key to the social and economic trajectories of the cities and the countryside in these economies. Findings from this project will inform researchers and policy-makers as they debate policies and issues on migration, urbanization, labor, employment, and political and social instability. The project will advance research collaboration between US and Chinese scholars, provide research opportunities for international students, help identify methodological and conceptual improvements in undergraduate and graduate teaching, and enable the life stories and experiences of rural Chinese to be accessible to broad audiences.