The socio-economic dynamics of urbanization in China: Inequalities, child health and development

这项研究将扩展我的博士项目，通过考虑一个重要的宏观背景因素-快速城市化，探讨父母迁移及其对中国儿童健康和福祉的影响。本研究旨在探讨中国城市化进程中儿童健康的城乡差异是如何变化的。在为期一年的研究期间，我的目标是实现五个主要目标：1）将我的博士研究成果传播给学术和非学术受众; 2）与中国各领域的学术机构和非学术用户建立网络和伙伴关系，为未来的资助申请提出建议; 3）编制出版物，以帮助建立移徙和城市化领域的跟踪记录及其对人口健康和福祉的影响; 4）接受专门培训，例如，交流，翻译和传播，政策分析和进一步先进的方法，使我成为一个全面的研究人员; 5）提供一个很好的一步，建立我的学术生涯在移民和城市化及其对人口健康和福祉的影响领域。中国在过去三十年中经历了快速的城市化，城市人口比例从1978年的18%（1.7245亿）上升到2011年的51%（6.9076亿）。与西方和前社会主义国家不同，中国的快速城市化不仅是由自发的农村-城市移民推动的，而且部分是由政府计划的，政府一直保持着有利于城市居民的城市偏好，以保持政权稳定。中国的户籍制度正式将其人口分为出生在城市地区的“城市居民”和出生在农村地区的“农村居民或农民”。这是当代中国的社会地位标志，也意味着不同的国家福利待遇。户口制度是影响中国个人生活机会和社会经济福祉的最重要的制度安排。中国的快速城市化进程可能导致社会经济资源和生活机会在人口中的不平等分配，从而导致城乡健康不平等。有人建议，以儿童或生命早期为目标，有可能在一代人的时间内减少健康不平等。城市化在身体健康和心理健康方面对儿童健康的影响可能是复杂的。儿童可以从改善的经济地位、更好的医疗保健、卫生设施和更好的营养中受益。然而，城市化带来的环境、经济和社会的迅速变化可能使儿童处于危险境地，如环境危害、压力源以及不健康的饮食和生活方式。城市化对儿童健康的影响可能因城市化程度不同而不同，因为农村、新城市化社区和定居城市可能与不同的儿童健康和发育风险因素有关。尽管中国城乡儿童健康的不平等现象有很多文献记载，但很少有人试图研究这种关系在中国城市化过程中的变化及其可能的机制。以前的研究倾向于以横截面的方式分别研究社会经济地位，城市化和儿童健康，未能研究快速城市化社会中儿童健康的动态社会经济不平等。该奖学金旨在通过考虑中国重要的宏观背景因素-农村-城市移民和快速城市化，探索儿童健康和发展中的社会经济不平等的动态。研究结果将为公共卫生和社会福利决策提供良好的证据基础，以解决中国和其他快速城市化和国内移民的发展中国家儿童健康和福利不平等问题。

The proposed fellowship study will expand on my PhD project about parental migration and its influence on children's health and wellbeing in China by considering an important macro contextual factor - rapid urbanization. It aims to examine how rural-urban disparity in child health changes during the process of China's urbanization. I aim to achieve five main objectives during this one-year fellowship: 1) To disseminate findings from my PhD to both academic and non-academic audiences; 2) To build networks and partnerships with academic institutions and non-academic users across sectors in China to develop proposals for future grant calls; 3) To produce publications in order to help establish a track record in the area of migration and urbanization and their influence on population health and wellbeing; 4) To receive specialised training, e.g., communication, translation and dissemination, policy analysis and further advanced methods to make me a well-rounded researcher; 5) To provide an excellent step towards establishing my academic career in the area of migration and urbanization and their impacts on population health and wellbeing. China has seen rapid urbanization in the last three decades, with the proportion of urban population rising from 18 percent (172.45 million) in 1978 to 51 percent (690.76 million) in 2011. Unlike Western and former socialist countries, China's rapid urbanization is not merely driven by spontaneous rural-urban migration, but also partly planned by the government that has maintained an urban bias in favour of urban residents to preserve regime stability. China's household registration (hukou) system officially segregates its population into 'urban residents' born in urban areas and 'rural residents or peasants' born in rural areas. These are the status markers in contemporary China, and entail different state welfare entitlements. The hukou system is the most crucial institutional arrangement that has affected individuals' life chances and socio-economic well-being in China. The process of China's rapid urbanization may cause the unequal distributions of socio-economic resources and life chances among its population, thus contributing to rural-urban health inequalities. It has been suggested that targeting at childhood or early years of life has the potential to reduce health inequalities within one generation. The consequences of urbanization on child health in terms of physical health and psychosocial well-being are likely to be mixed. Children may benefit from improved economic status, better access to healthcare, sanitation, and better nutrition. However, rapid environmental, economic and social changes that follow urbanization may put children in risky situations such as environmental hazards, stressors, and unhealthy diets and lifestyles. The effect of urbanization on child health may differ according to the degree of urbanization because, for example, rural, newly urbanized communities and settled urban can be associated with different risk factors of child health and development. Despite well documented rural-urban inequalities in child health in China, there are few attempts to examine how this relationship changes during the process of China's urbanization and possible mechanisms. Previous research has tended to study socioeconomic status, urbanization and child health separately in a cross-sectional fashion and failed to examine the dynamic socioeconomic inequalities in child health in a rapidly urbanizing society. This proposed fellowship aims to explore the dynamics of socioeconomic inequalities in child health and development by considering important macro contextual factors-rural-urban migration and rapid urbanization in China. Findings will provide a sound evidence base to inform decision-making in public health and social welfare to tackle health and welfare inequalities among children in China and other developing countries with rapid urbanization and internal migration.