Search Results (102)

Differences exist between rural–urban migrants and urban–urban migrants in terms of human capital’s accumulation and pathways of social integration, yet few studies have systematically compared these distinctions. Based on the CMDS2017 survey data, this study constructed a comprehensive social integration index across four dimensions—economic integration, behavioral adaptation, identity recognition, and psychological assimilation—to analyze the influencing factors and decompose the disparities in social integration levels between the two groups from a human capital perspective. Using Oaxaca mean decomposition and Machado–Mata (MM) quantile decomposition, the results indicated that urban–urban migrants exhibited higher social integration levels than rural–urban migrants, with human capital significantly influencing integration outcomes. Better education, health status, longer migration duration, and more work experience positively enhanced migrants’ social integration. Human capital accounted for 38.35% of the social integration gap between the two groups, while coefficient differences were the primary driver of disparities. The returns to education diminish at higher integration levels, suggesting education played a stronger role for those with lower integration. The social integration gap between the two groups followed an inverted U-shaped trend, with smaller disparities at higher quantiles. As integration levels rose, characteristic differences declined continuously, indicating convergence toward homogeneity among high-integration migrants. These research findings indicated that the improvement in the social integration level of migrants still requires continuous investment in cultivating the human capital of migrants. Full article

Given the significant shifts in rural labor mobility patterns and their continuous influence on the transformation of the land factor market, it is crucial to understand the relationship between labor factor prices and land factor prices. This understanding is essential to keep land factor prices within a reasonable range. This study establishes a theoretical framework to investigate how migrant workers’ return shapes land price formation mechanisms. Using 2023 micro-level survey data from eight counties in Jiangsu Province, China, this study empirically examines how migrant workers’ return affects land transfer prices and its underlying mechanisms through OLS regression and instrumental variable approaches. The findings show that under the current pattern of labor mobility, the outflow factor alone is no longer sufficient to exert substantial downward pressure on land transfer prices. Instead, the localized return of labor has emerged as a key driver behind the rise in land transfer prices. This upward mechanism is primarily realized through the following pathways. First, factor substitution effect: this effect lowers labor prices and increases the relative marginal output value of land factors. Second, supply–demand effect: migrant workers’ return simultaneously increases land demand and reduces supply, intensifying market shortages and driving up transfer prices. Lastly, the results demonstrate that enhancing the stability of land tenure security or increasing local non-agricultural employment opportunities can mitigate the effect of rising land transfer prices caused by the migrant workers’ return. According to the study’s findings, stabilizing land factor prices depends on full non-agricultural employment for migrant workers. This underscores the significance of policies that encourage employment for returning rural labor. Full article

Understanding the reintegration of returning rural migrants in China is crucial due to the large scale of return migration and its associated challenges. While existing research has largely focused on economic reintegration, this study broadens the scope to include social, cultural, and civic dimensions. Using data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) 2016 and employing multilevel ordered logistic regression, the research uncovers the following key patterns: (i) Determinants differ largely across dimensions; (ii) The roles of the same determinants can also differ significantly across dimensions; and (iii) There are significant community-level variations across dimensions. The findings emphasize that success in one dimension, such as economic reintegration, does not necessarily translate into success in others. Moreover, complex interconnections between dimensions reveal positive, negative, and non-linear relationships, underscoring the multidimensional nature of reintegration. These insights highlight the importance of considering multiple dimensions to fully understand the reintegration processes of returning migrants. Full article

Rural tourism has emerged as an efficient strategy for rural revitalization while having various impacts on rural governance. Previous studies predominantly focused on the social implications of rural tourism and its impact on institutional arrangements while neglecting the influence of rural tourism on collective action in rural governance. This study employed a social–ecological system (SES) framework to investigate the influence of rural tourism on rural collective action, utilizing survey data from 22 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), 178 villages, and 3282 rural households across China. The findings revealed that rural tourism exerted a positive influence on collective action, primarily through labor force reflow mechanisms. Specifically, the leadership of village cadres had a moderating role in enhancing this positive correlation. Further analysis revealed significant heterogeneity in tourism governance effects: non-plain regions and villages with medium to low economic development levels exhibited substantial improvements in collective action, whereas plain areas and economically advanced villages may manifest potentially negative impacts. Theoretically, this study contributes to elucidating tourism-driven self-governance mechanisms by applying the SES framework, thereby transcending the traditional dualistic debate between state-market and development-governance paradigms. Practically, we propose institutional designs that embed collective action mechanisms into the coupled synergistic development of rural tourism and community governance, thereby activating endogenous motivations for rural self-governance. Full article

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of kinship-based control, which serves as a mechanism of labour exploitation among Bangladeshi migrant workers in manufacturing and labour-intensive sectors in the Northern Emirates. The current study explores different case studies regarding participants dominated by familial control mechanisms that lead to Bangladeshi migrant workers finding themselves in vulnerable situations. This study incorporated an ethnographic research method. Data was gathered through participant observation, document analysis, and semi-structured interviews. The study includes different participant cases, including accounts from Bangladeshi migrant workers and their family members. In-depth interviews were conducted with a total of twelve participants to understand the experiences of Bangladeshi migrant workers and analyzed using a thematic approach. The findings of this study reveal six major themes: moral blackmail, isolation within the family, moral obligation and silence, familial control structures, abuse framed as duty, and informal hierarchies. This study shows that the existing labour mechanism is challenging for Bangladeshi workers, requiring strict attention from the host country to address challenges related to cultural obligations, the minimum wage, restricted movement, and harsh working conditions. It is implied that Bangladesh must make policy changes to create protective migration policies, establish worker independence, and provide pre-departure welfare programmes. Educational programmes developed by NGOs and public officials must include widespread awareness initiatives to heighten the focus on migrants and their family members and break unsustainable cultural standards. The novel aspect of this study lies in the fact that it explores family-based labour exploitation, which is rarely studied in migration research. Full article

Seoul systematically removed all graveyards that once lay within the city and its surrounding areas, a phenomenon notably distinct from urban development patterns in other parts of the world. After the Korean War, refugees and migrants poured into the devastated capital. In this postwar environment, cemeteries—traditionally sites of mourning and death—transformed into spaces of survival for displaced populations. With the military demarcation line preventing their return home, refugees began to envision their lost hometowns as “absent places”: unattainable utopias, idealized lands where all beauty resides—the very origin and endpoint of life. In contrast, Seoul, where they were forced to settle, became a “dystopia,” stripped of sanctity. Over time, however, the next generation reinterpreted this dystopia, gradually transforming it into a heterotopia. As Seoul’s urban landscape expanded, this heterotopia evolved into a Christian paradise. The second generation, having never experienced the trauma of displacement, found the newly constructed city comfortable and secure. Reinforced concrete buildings and asphalt roads became symbolic of paradise. The development of Gangnam—famously captured in Psy’s global hit “Gangnam Style”—represents a belated cultural revolution among younger generations in modern South Korea and exemplifies the transformation into a concrete paradise. Full article

With the nationwide completion of China’s large-scale Poverty Alleviation Relocation (PAR) initiative in 2020, the government’s poverty alleviation efforts have officially entered the “post-poverty era”. However, many regions still lack well-established sustainable development mechanisms and face a potential risk of returning to poverty. To better stabilize the achievements of poverty alleviation, this study examines the potential risk of returning to poverty after the first Five-Year Transition Period (2021–2025) from a livelihood space perspective and proposes optimization directions for PAR policies in future poverty reduction efforts. Research findings indicate that simply altering geographical conditions is insufficient to achieve stable poverty alleviation. The production space of relocated populations is vulnerable to the stability and precision in resource supply, which may lead to recurring poverty due to policy discontinuities and administrative preferences. Meanwhile, improvements in living spaces are constrained by imbalances in household income and expenditure. This study also found that, on the one hand, changes in residential patterns break the original boundaries of administrative villages by incorporating migrants from different villages into concentrated communities, leading to the expansion of weak-tie networks while, on the other hand, the relocation process disrupts some of the migrants’ original strong-tie networks, and the concentration and clustering of impoverished groups in relocation communities further lead to the contraction of these networks. Additionally, the unique characteristics of relocation communities generate exorbitant governance costs and population management difficulties that far exceed the service provision and administrative capacities of community organizations. In the long run, this situation proves detrimental to normalized community governance and dynamic poverty relapse monitoring and interventions. Accordingly, this study proposes relevant policy recommendations from the following four aspects, i.e., strengthening endogenous development capacity, improving social security mechanisms, expanding social support networks, and enhancing organizational governance capabilities, aiming to provide both a theoretical basis and a decision-making reference for future poverty alleviation efforts. Full article

In this article, I explore Merle Collins’ reworking of poems from the Nelson’s Royal Readers. Focusing on Part V of Ocean Stirrings, I explore Collins’ use of poetic form to represent the mental unravelling and restitching of Louise Langdon Norton Little, the mother of Malcolm X. Louise Litte—a Grenadian migrant woman—is depicted as unmoored by the travails of racism in early twentieth century USA. Louise’s ensuing psychological cataclysm is refracted through the prism of the memories of her grandmother’s Creole voice—an oral text which discursively radicalizes the colonial agenda that was core to the Royal Readers. I argue that Collins is intentional in her use of a decolonized poetic versification to represent Louise Little’s imaginative maneuvering into self-reclamation. Transposing her grief and loss onto the poems learnt when she was a child, Louise is depicted as poetically and creatively harnessing her grandmother’s grassroot wisdom on the value of strategic resilience. This retelling allows Louise to survive the trauma of her incarceration in a U.S. mental hospital and returns her to her Caribbean self: Oseyan. Full article

Housing prices are a topic of significant social concern, and public services are a crucial factor influencing migrants’ return intentions. Based on the China Labour Force Dynamics Survey and China Real Estate Index database from 2012 to 2018, this study adopts probit model to explore the influence mechanism of housing prices on migrants’ return intentions and the moderating effect of public services. The results indicate that housing prices have a significant positive impact on migrants’ return intentions, and the level of public services negatively moderates the relationship between housing prices and migrants’ return intentions. Moreover, employing an instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity of housing prices, the modeling results provide robust evidence of the significant and heterogenous impact of housing prices on return intentions among migrants. In particular, the positive impact of housing prices is mainly concentrated among single urban migrants without housing. Additionally, public services negatively moderate the positive impact of housing prices on return intentions among single rural migrants without housing. By elucidating the correlation between housing prices, public services, and return intentions among migrants, this study offers recommendations for policymakers regarding migration issues in urban development. Full article

There is scant literature on migrants with an entrepreneurial background and who return to their country of origin. Using a transnational theoretical approach, we seek to contribute to research in this field by analysing the return strategies and expectations of Colombian migrant entrepreneurs participating in the Programme Migration and Diaspora (PMD). This programme is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (German Society for International Cooperation, Eschborn, Germany) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ, Berlin, Germany). To this end, a mixed-methods study was conducted. Likert scale questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were applied to twenty-seven entrepreneurs participating in the programme, analysing quantitative and qualitative variables. Migrants seek to contribute to Colombia’s development through entrepreneurship, looking for various commercial connections for which security and planning conditions are necessary. They see entrepreneurship as sustenance, which in most cases results in transnational links between Germany and Colombia. For that to happen, contacts and acquired experiences are fundamental, as well as tangible and intangible resources, amongst which the information and support for entrepreneurship granted by GIZ stand out. Generally, it is essential to continue strengthening differentiated and comprehensive support strategies for all types of migrant entrepreneurs in destination countries. Full article

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar triggered a severe humanitarian crisis, forcing many to flee through regular and irregular channels to neighboring countries like Thailand. This study explores the resulting migration patterns and precarious situation of Myanmar nationals seeking refuge in Thailand. Drawing on contemporary sources, it highlights how the crisis, worsened by military conscription laws, displaced many citizens. Refugees face constant fear of incarceration and forced repatriation while struggling with limited access to basic services in Thailand, which worsens mental health and reduces quality of life. The military’s revenue tactics, such as taxing overseas workers and remittances, have contributed to their hardships. In response, Thailand introduced a cabinet resolution to legalize work and residence for irregular migrants for four years. However, ongoing detentions and deportations risk forced military enlistment upon return, raising doubts about the resolution’s effectiveness, accessibility, and affordability. The study concludes with policy recommendations to address the humanitarian needs of Myanmar’s displaced population both at home and abroad. It also suggests ways to implement protective measures effectively, such as the Thai Cabinet resolution, to safeguard the dignity and rights of Myanmar’s people. Full article

In the context of the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy in China, returning rural migrant workers are bound to have a certain impact on the rural economy, and land is a very important factor in the agricultural economy. Using data from the 2018 China Labor Dynamic Survey (CLDS), this study examines how migrant workers’ return behaviors influence farmland transfer-in. To address potential endogeneity, the analysis employs the Probit model, instrumental variable methods, and propensity score matching. The findings reveal that returning migrant workers significantly promote farmland transfer-in. Households with returning migrant workers exhibit stronger demands for land transfer-in and tend to operate farmland on a larger scale. Furthermore, returning migrant workers drive farmland expansion through mechanization labor substitution, enhanced access to agricultural loans, and reduced non-farm participation. Additionally, returning migrant workers who are highly educated and younger play a particularly influential role, underscoring the heterogeneous impacts across different migrant groups. This study provides empirical evidence for rural revitalization policies in China by systematically analyzing the effect of returning migrant workers in promoting land transfer-in and the path of influence on farmland scale. Full article

This study examines the effect of China’s Pilot Policy for Migrant Workers Returning Home for Entrepreneurship on High-Quality Agricultural Development (HQAD) at the county level. Despite extensive research on return migration and rural development, few studies have focused on how such entrepreneurship policies affect HQAD. We analyze county-level panel data from 2014 to 2021 using a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to assess the policy’s effectiveness and its regional variations across China. We further validate our findings through robustness tests, including parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and propensity score matching combined with difference-in-differences analysis (PSM–DID). The results indicate that the pilot policy significantly enhances HQAD (β = 0.216, p < 0.001), with more pronounced effects in the Eastern region (β = 0.401, p < 0.001) than in the Central region (β = 0.312, p < 0.001), and no significant effects in the Western region. Additionally, our analysis shows that population agglomeration (β = 0.306, p < 0.001) and technological innovation (β = 2.970, p < 0.001) positively moderate the policy’s impact, whereas e-commerce development (β = −0.257, p < 0.001) has a negative moderating effect. These insights highlight that the success of return entrepreneurship policies is heavily dependent on regional characteristics and supportive development factors, offering crucial implications for refining policies in rural development strategies. Full article

In recent years, rural return has emerged as a significant trend in China, largely driven by central and local government policies promoting rural revitalization and urban-to-rural migration. This study aims to explore the impact of rural return on the evolution of rural spaces at the village level in China, with a particular focus on how urban-to-rural migration reshapes village spatial structures. This study examines the spatial implications of this phenomenon through case studies of three traditional villages in Zhejiang Province, utilizing qualitative fieldwork, spatial mapping, and in-depth interviews. By analyzing migration patterns, residential choices, and subsequent spatial transformations, this research elucidates how urban-to-rural migrants reshape spatial structures at the village level and integrate into local communities. The research findings reveal that the proportion of the migrant population is less than 30%, yet this relatively small proportion has brought significant changes to the village, manifested in the substantial increase in third spaces within the village. The study also identifies ten distinct migration types within the sample, with short-term residency comprising the majority, and migrants’ relocation needs play a crucial role in determining spatial adaptations. The predominant strategy for village integration involves the functional transformation of traditional dwellings into mixed-use commercial and residential spaces, as well as the renovation of existing structures to accommodate new social and economic activities. Additionally, the study underscores the active participation of migrants in public life and communal spaces as a key driver of spatial regeneration. This research contributes to the understanding of rural transformation in contemporary China by demonstrating that urban-to-rural migration not only reshapes village spatial configurations but also catalyzes social and functional revitalization. These insights provide a nuanced perspective on the evolving dynamics of rural settlements and inform future rural development strategies. Full article

Promoting moderate-scale land management is a crucial pathway for achieving the transformation of agricultural modernization in China. Whether migrant workers with the advantage of human capital can effectively promote moderate scale management is a problem worthy of in-depth discussion. Based on survey data from three counties in Sichuan Province in 2024, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of migrant workers’ return on farmers’ land transfer-in behavior by constructing IV-Probit and IV-Tobit models. The results show that (1) the return of migrant workers significantly promotes the land transfer-in of rural households by enhancing their risk tolerance and increasing the participation of cooperative organizations; (2) however, there is some heterogeneity in these results. The effect of the return of migrant workers in plain areas and economically developed villages on land transfer-in is stronger than that in mountainous areas and economically weak villages. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that differentiated policies should be formulated according to the natural conditions and economic foundations of different regions, making full use of the human capital advantages of returning migrant workers to effectively promote the realization of moderate-scale management among farmers. Full article