Migration and migrants in Chinese cities: New trends,challenges and opportunities to theorise with urban China

Abstract

This introductory article to the special issue discusses some of the latest trends in migration research in urban China and focuses on three areas which have generated new understandings on migration and migrants in Chinese cities. Firstly, it identifies the various similarities and intersections between urban resettlement and migration studies by drawing on the case of China where the livelihoods and experience of migrants and resettled residents have been affected by China’s rapid urbanisation. Secondly, the paper discusses the enduring significance of the residential neighbourhood in influencing the place attachment, social relationships and career development of migrant residents. Finally, it delves deeper into the various ways studies have sought to categorise and differentiate between different migrant sub-groups in urban China and reveals that more fine-grained migration studies have helped better understand China’s large and ever more diverse migrant population and their variegated living experiences and challenges.

Keywords

Migration migrants neighbourhood place attachment urban resettlement migrant identities

Introduction

With Chinese cities housing one of the largest domestic migrant population in the world, research on migrants in China continues to be a major topic of academic and policy interest (Chan, 2009; Chen and Wang, 2019; Chung, 2018; Hao and Tang, 2015; Qian, 2022; Wu and Logan, 2016). It has been more than four decades since China’s migration flow started in the 1980s. What began as a largely rural to urban migration flow in the early 1980s that came along with China’s rapid economic growth as a world factory has now morphed in a much more diverse situation where China is not only experiencing rural to urban migration but also inter and intra-provincial migration as well as the movement of highly skilled migrants (Lu, 2023, this special issue; Tang et al., 2023, this issue). These changing trends in migration are closely connected to China’s changing urbanisation itself. China’s initial urbanisation since the 1980s was driven by rural to urban migration and largely adheres to the dual sector model proposed by Arthur Lewis, which posits that urbanisation is driven by industrial growth in cities and an idle working age population in the countryside who then subsequently move to cities for work (Chan and Wei, 2019). However, after more than three decades of urbanisation, China’s urban transformation has gone well beyond the dual sector model and has resulted in new types of migration flows and new migrants such as the tens of millions of residents resettled to make space for urban development and major infrastructure projects. The purpose of this special issue is to contribute to existing efforts to understand China’s diversifying internal migration groups and explore the challenges they face as migrants in Chinese cities (Zhu and Qian, 2021). The issue also seeks to highlight some of China’s recent migration trends and how they are related to China’s changing urban development and governance approaches as well as how they may help recalibrate our existing understanding of migrants and migration in urban China.

The introductory article is organised as follows. The next section discusses the rising number of residents resettled by urban development in China and how resettled residents share many similarities with migrants as well as potential benefits of comparing these two population groups. It is followed by a section which examines how place attachment and social relations have changed since China’s massive urban expansion and the enduring role of the neighbourhood in influencing migrants’ place attachment and social relationships. The fourth section then moves on to discuss the growing diversity of China migrant population and how they emerged due to China’s changing urban development approach. We then conclude with some thoughts of how migration research on China can speak back to a more global urban studies.

The many intersections of resettlement and migration in urban China

When speaking of China’s rapid and phenomenal urbanisation, rural to urban migration is often cited as the key driver to the increase in urban residents (Guan, 2014; Quan, 1991). Yet the conversion of rural residents into urban residents through urban resettlement is comparatively much less discussed. Certainly, migrants who voluntarily move to cities still comprise the largest group in China, but there are increasingly more residents who are being resettled to new areas by the state. The staggering figure of 9.6 million farmers being resettled into Chinese cities between 2016 to 2020 shows that rural to urban resettlement now forms an integral part of China urbanisation strategy (Yang and Qian, 2022). Reasons for these resettlements range from building large-scale infrastructures such as the Three Gorges Dam (Wilmsen, 2018) to China’s urban expansion into rural areas and inner city regeneration projects (Hong et al., 2021; Wang, 2022). Resettled rural residents therefore form an important part of China’s land-based capital accumulation model, which essentially rests on firstly fostering industrial developments and subsequently developing urban functions, including lucrative housing commercial developments, to generate profits. If rural migrants provide the essential cheap labour force for China’s factories then rural farmers provide the cheap land that is needed to develop China’s cities as well as serve as potential new urban consumers (Wilmsen and Webber, 2015). Terms from migration and displacement studies have also been used interchangeably to refer to both migrants and resettled residents. For example, residents who had to be resettled due to the Three Gorges Dam are often referred to as migrants because many of the residents were resettled to different cities (Feng et al., 2021; Wilmsen, 2018). Officially in China, there are clear distinctions between resettled residents and migrants. Migrants are those who had been away from their place of hukou registration for at least six months and moved from one administrative area to the other without changing their household registration (hukou) status (Chan, 2009; Chen, 2011). In contrast, resettled residents are people who have been resettled by the state and received compensation. Resettled residents also have a local hukou and therefore have access to public welfare (Li et al., 2019). Another distinction between both groups is homeownership. Officially, resettled residents are homeowners whose property has been acquired by the state and receive compensation in the form of housing and welfare entitlements. Migrants, on the other hand, are mostly tenants and do not receive any compensation both when they leave their hometown or when they are resettled in cities. On the surface, then, both groups seem to have little in common.

However, there are more similarities between migrants and resettled residents in China if we put the official definitions aside. A recent article by Roast et al. (2022) argues for an interdisciplinary approach combining urban and migration studies in researching and conceptualising displacement. Inspired by Roast et al.’s (2022) cross-disciplinary thinking, we also believe that the various concepts in migration and displacement can be mutually beneficial, especially in understanding migration and displacement in urban China. For example, examining decisions to migration through the conceptual lens of displacement can be beneficial in understanding the complex processes and decisions involved in whether someone decides to migrate elsewhere or not. So far, rural to urban migration in China is chiefly explained by the wish of migrants to find better paid jobs in cities and their intention to settle in cities (Guan, 2014; Li and Wu, 2013). However, through the lens of displacement, which focuses on the area that residents are moving away from, it becomes apparent that oftentimes rural migrants have little choice but to move to cities. In China’s rural areas, the lack of employment opportunities, limited and dwindling number of public amenities and poverty (Liu et al., 2017a) can also be understood as ‘displacement pressures’ (Baeten et al., 2017; Slater, 2009) that force rural residents to move into cities. Displacement pressure here is understood as declining conditions in an area that do not directly displace residents but nonetheless exert pressure on them to move away (Slater, 2009). Conceptualising rural migrants as displaced residents therefore helps to shine a stronger light on the pressures that push, rather than just pull, them to move to cities for survival. Likewise, theories from migration studies can also benefit the research of displacement, such as the notion that the decision to migrate is influenced by a combination of push and pull factors. The framework of push and push underlines the need to examine both the negative factors in and of the sending area, which push residents to migrate, and the benefits in the destination area which form the pulling factors. Compared to displacement, the idea of push and pull therefore encourages us to think of both the sending and the destination area, an approach that has also been advocated by recent resettlement studies (Beier et al., 2021; Meth et al., 2023; Wang, 2020). A focus on the push and pull factors can help partly explain why many residents do not vehemently oppose urban resettlement in China, where it is oftentimes accompanied by relatively generous compensation schemes (Jiang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019). The prospect on living in a new neighbourhood and receiving several properties as compensation often convince residents to resettle without resistance. Furthermore, many low-income migrants living in informal settlements have overlapping identities as migrants and as displaced residents. Given China’s concerted efforts to remove urban informality (Shin, 2012; Wu, 2016; Wu et al., 2013), urban villages which form a primary habitat for rural migrants are particularly at risk of demolition (Shin, 2012; Wu, 2016; Wu et al., 2013). Compared to homeowners in China’s urban villages, migrants do not have the right to compensation and lose out the most from the demolition of informal settlements as they are displaced without any compensation (Huang et al., 2017; Teo, 2022; Wu et al., 2013). Another example of intersecting identities can be found in Zhang et al.’s study (2023, this issue). They propose the concept of ‘suburban migrants’ who are resettled rural residents that chose to move to the inner city rather than stay in their relocation settlement. Their study compares these suburban migrants with urban and rural migrants and finds that they face similar problems of finding employment.

In addition to the many shared factors that result in residents leaving their area, we believe that the commonalities between migration and resettlement studies do not stop here. There are many more similarities to be found between migrants and resettled residents after their arrival in the destination area. In migration studies, there is a cornucopia of research concerned with the various aspects of migrants’ lives and livelihood after reaching their destination, focusing on their social and economic integration (Ruiz-Tagle, 2013; Wang and Fan, 2012), social network (Liu et al., 2017b; Putnam, 2007; Vervoort, 2012; Wang et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2022) and sense of belonging (Lin et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2022) amongst many others. Compared to migration studies, there is considerably much less known about the fate of residents who have been resettled. In response, many recent studies have started to examine the post-displacement life of residents (Beier et al., 2021; Meth et al., 2023; Teo et al., 2023; Wang, 2020; Watt, 2022; Williams et al., 2022). Findings from post-resettlement studies reveal many similarities between migrants and resettled residents, such as the fact that both groups rely on existing social networks in their new destination area at first. For migrants, they rely on fellow migrants who live in the same area (Wang et al., 2017a, 2017b; Wu and Logan, 2016) whereas for resettled residents, they often rely on fellow neighbours who were resettled into the same relocation settlement (Wang et al., 2023). For both migrants and resettled residents, they interact with neighbours as a form of mutual support (Wang, 2022; Wang et al., 2016; Wu and Logan, 2016). Furthermore, rural migrants and rural residents who have been resettled into cities often have the same challenge of being unable to find highly paid jobs due to lack of education and skills (Chung, 2018; Jiang et al., 2018). In this sense, China’s rural urban disparity and unequal access to public resources such as education can be observed from both rural migrants and landless farmers resettled into urban neighbourhoods. Furthermore, both groups tend to feel a lack of sense of belonging and place attachment in their new destination area (Wang et al., 2017b, 2023; Wu, 2012). Both rural residents and resettled rural residents are also targets of stigmatisation and discrimination (Du et al., 2018, 2021). As a result, both groups tend to feel isolated and choose to mostly interact with residents who are from the same background as them whilst avoiding contact with out-group residents (Wang et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2022).

Due to the lack of sense of belonging and place attachment, both groups face the need to reterritorialize (Liang et al., 2023, this issue; Rogers and Wilmsen, 2020; Wang, 2022). The concept of reterritorialization, defined as ‘as a contested process carried out by different actors, including the state and resettled residents, in regaining territorial control and belonging over the new space they inhabit’ (Teo et al., 2023: 14), has recently been used to examine how both resettled residents and rural migrants adapt to their life in their destination area. In the case of Guangzhou’s urban villages, Liang et al. (2023, this issue) find that there is little formal support in place to help rural migrants reterritorialize and instead rural migrants have to rely on themselves to adapt to their new home. In contrast, for resettled residents, Wang (2022) reveals that there is a set of dedicated strategies by the state to help rebuild the community of residents and reterritorialize them in a way that renders them into ‘more governable’ subjects. These measures are mostly implemented by residential associations and a group of resident volunteers and include creating interest groups and periodic community events as well as concerted efforts to recruit more residents to work as volunteers in the management of their neighbourhoods. In contrast, there is significantly less effort spent on the sense of belonging and community of migrant residents, although the ongoing policy of shiminhua shows the government’s continuing desire to ‘urbanise’ rural migrants (Shieh and Friedmann, 2008). Similarly, Zhou (2023, this issue) refers to local Shanghai residents who have been resettled as part of the city’s ongoing old town regeneration initiative as ‘passive relocation migrants’, thereby highlighting the need to rebuild their identity and re-establishing roots in their new destination area.

Finally, resettled residents and migrants also often live in the same kind of neighbourhoods. Urban villages before their redevelopment are a prime example, as they are inhabited by rural migrants and rural landlords whose farmland was acquired by the state for development but were allowed to keep their residential land upon which urban villages were developed (Chung, 2010). Secondly, relocation settlements, which were created to house resettled residents, also have a large number of migrant tenants, who prefer renting from resettled residents due to lower rents (Wang, 2022). Migrants and resettled residents in this sense often live in the same areas whereby migrant tenants form an important source of income for resettled residents both prior to their resettlement (in urban villages) and after their resettlement (in relocation settlements). In this regard, another difference between migrants and resettled residents becomes obvious. Whilst migrants are predominantly tenants, resettled residents are all homeowners and at times own several properties thanks to generous compensation schemes (Chung, 2010; Li and Wu, 2008; Li et al., 2019; Wang and Wu, 2019).

Having listed the various shared features and intersections of migration and urban resettlement, at this point it is important to ask: what are the benefits of examining the similarities of migrants and resettled residents? To answer this question, we hope that China’s large and diverse groups of migrants and resettled residents can help stimulate a debate surrounding the conceptualisations of migrants and resettled residents and more interdisciplinary thinking and theorising of migration and urban resettlement. For instance, if one were to conceptualise resettled residents as a particular type of migrants who were moved for urban development-related purposes, then that would certainly call for the need to conduct more research on their social (re)integration into their destination area.

Beyond the theoretical value of comparing migrants and resettled residents, there may also be benefits from a policy perspective. Thinking in an interdisciplinary manner about migration and urban resettlement may help devise better policies to improve the livelihood of both population groups. Research on the social integration of migrants can help post-resettlement studies identify crucial aspects of resettled residents that have been ignored so far, such as how resettlement may affect their mental well-being through stigmatisation and the trauma of being resettled (Liu et al., 2019; Zhang, 2004, 2018). Likewise, research on the extensive state-led community rebuilding strategies for resettled residents can also offer clues as to how to help rural migrants better adapt to their urban lives. The comparison of both groups also helps to shed light on the intertwined fates and doubling and overlapping challenges of migration and resettlement.

Migrant social networks, place attachment and the enduring significance of neighbourhoods

Ever since the influx of rural migrants into Chinese cities, there has been much scholarly attention on how such tremendous migration waves have affected the place attachment and the social network of migrants and local residents alike (Forrest and Yip, 2007; Hazelzet and Wissink, 2012; Kochan, 2016; Lin et al., 2020, 2022; Liu et al., 2022; Qian and Zhu, 2014; Wang et al., 2016, 2017b; Wu, 2012; Wu and Logan, 2016; Xu et al., 2022; Zhu and Qian, 2021). Over the last decade of research, one line of debate is concerned with the importance of the neighbourhood in influencing the place attachment and social network of migrants. With regard to place attachment, several studies assert that the residential neighbourhood, defined here as the area in which migrants reside in, remains an important factor that can shape the place attachment of migrant residents (Liu, 2019; Liu et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2016, 2017a, 2017c). Place attachment, here understood as attachment to the residential neighbourhood, increases when migrants have positive neighbourly relations with local residents (Du, 2017; Wang et al., 2017b). These arguments have been challenged by more recent studies, which argue that migrants’ place attachment is no longer constrained to the neighbourhood but instead migrants can also feel attachment towards the city (Lin et al., 2020). The ‘place’ to which migrants are more attached to is the city itself rather than the neighbourhood as (Lin et al., 2020: 4) explains:

‘Neighbourhood’ signifies a living space or maybe a ladder for migrants to gain upward social mobility. It may only serve as a transitional place for migrants before they permanently settle down. However, the host city where they may finally settle is closely related to migrants’ work, consumption and social networking.

We completely agree that the residential neighbourhood is not the only important place that help migrants adapt to their new city live since, for instance, most rural migrants hold insecure tenures and are not able to stay in one place for very long (Li and Wu, 2013). Under such circumstances, to rely purely on attachment to a particular neighbourhood in a city to explain, for instance, why migrants wish to stay in cities certainly does not make sense. Lin et al.’s (2020) work also speaks closely to the idea of multi-scalar place attachment, recognising that different areas at geographic scales can hold different meaning to residents (Watt, 2022). However, we believe that the neighbourhood is much more than just a ‘transitional place’ which is only meaningful to migrants during their climb up the social ladder. Even for migrants who have managed to settle down into the city and, for instance, gained homeownership, the residential neighbourhood still matters. This is because even a ‘fully settled down’ migrant will still need to live in a residential neighbourhood in the city albeit in a different type of neighbourhood, which is likely of better quality and higher price than the one they arrived in at first. In short, we believe that different neighbourhoods hold different meanings to migrant residents at different stages of their integration in the city. Liu’s work (2023, this issue) is a case in point. Liu’s study (2023, this issue) explores the lives of migrants living in four different neighbourhood types in Beijing including an urban village, a worker’s dormitory, a former work-unit estate and a commodity housing estate. She discovers that whilst migrants living in urban villages rely a lot on neighbourly relations as a form of self-help whereas migrant residents who live in a commodity housing estate feel a sense of belonging due to the exclusivity and marketed image of privilege of commodity housing estates. Migrant homeowners who live in commodity housing estates may no longer engage in neighbourly interactions, but their homeownership compels them to feel a sense of ownership and attachment to the neighbourhood they reside in (Zhu et al., 2012). And despite the lack of so-called manifest neighbouring, understood as physical neighbourly interactions such as mutual help, migrant homeowners may still have a high level of latent neighbouring, defined as positive affective feelings towards their neighbours such as mutual trust and care (Wang et al., 2017a). High latent neighbouring may not matter most of the time but is nonetheless important, for instance when homeowners have to band together to confront an irresponsible estate management agency or to be more influential in neighbourhood governance (Cai and He, 2022; Lu et al., 2022). Indeed, research by Wu et al. (2019a) and Wu et al. (2019b) also shows that great attachment to one’s residential neighbourhood also increases one’s willingness to participate in neighbourhood governance and community activities. Additionally, understanding migrant enclaves not as a transitional neighbourhood that help migrants ‘move up’ but rather as a place of religious importance, Wang and Han (2023, this issue) reveal that the neighbourhood of Hui Fang Jamaat, a migrant enclave for Muslim migrants in Xi’An, can influence the identity and sense of belonging of its Muslim migrant residents. Wang and Han (2023, this issue) further find that important institutions within the neighbourhood, in this case mosques of different Muslim traditions, are important anchor points that help Muslim migrants feel a sense of belonging to the city. The Hui Fang enclave in this sense is not only meaningful to the Muslim migrants because of the cheap housing and entry employment opportunities it offers but more because of its religious institutions. Furthermore, even for those migrants who have moved out migrant enclaves, these neighbourhoods may still hold an important meaning in their lives. For migrant homeowners, the neighbourhood may no longer be a place for moving up the social ladder, but it can still be a place of great significance, such as in the case of rural migrant entrepreneurs in Guangzhou’s migrant enclave named ‘Little Hubei’, who have gained homeownership outside of the enclave but continue to run their businesses in the neighbourhood, given its many business advantages (Liu et al., 2015).

Having discussed the enduring significance of the neighbourhood in relation to migrants’ place attachment, we now turn our attention to the social relationships of migrants in Chinese cities and in what ways they are still connected to the neighbourhood migrants reside in. In our article, we understand social relationship as the various ways in which migrant residents are connected to others in the city, and this includes relationships with family members, friends, neighbours and also strangers and the general population within the city. One growing body of work insists that in addition to differentiating between family, kinship, friendship and neighbourly ties, it is also important to differentiate between whether one’s relationships mainly consists of in-group or intergroup social relations. In-group in the case of migrants in urban China is understood as relationships between migrants, whereas intergroup refers to social relationship between migrants and local residents (Liu, 2019; Nielsen et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2022). The differentiation between in-group and intergroup is, of course, nothing new as it is subject of many studies in multi-ethnic Western societies, where this distinction originated (Allport, 1954; Laurence and Bentley, 2016; Putnam, 2007). The main justification as to why intergroup relationships are important is that more and positive intergroup relationships can help break down stigmatisation and create more inclusive societies for ethnic minorities and migrants (Putnam, 2007). The need to study intergroup relations in Chinese cities is therefore also imperative given that migrants, especially from rural areas, are often subjected to stigmatisation, exclusion and discrimination by both the state and local residents (Chen et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2015). As a result, there have been a growing number of studies focusing on the various types of intergroup relations of migrants. The works by Nielsen et al. (2006) and Nielsen and Smyth (2011) are two of the earliest studies on the intergroup relationships of migrants in urban China. Drawing on a survey of 885 local urban residents, Nielsen et al. (2006) sought to uncover how locals perceive migrants and what factors have influenced their perception. They reveal that most local residents have a negative attitude towards migrants but that this attitude was more pronounced amongst male and older respondents. The study by Nielsen and Smyth (2011) then explores the relationship of migrant residents towards local urban residents and discovers that a majority of migrant respondents report a positive relationship with local urbanites whereby younger migrants tend to have better intergroup relations. Wang et al. (2016, 2017a) investigate the intergroup neighbourly relations of migrant residents, measured through how often migrants and locals interact with each other and whether they would define their relationship as trusting and caring, and find that neighbourhoods with higher shares of migrant residents also have higher levels of intergroup relations. Moving beyond the neighbourly relations, Wang et al. (2017c) questioned how much migrants and local residents consider each other as trustworthy, discovering that intergroup social trust is generally lower than in-group social trust. Liu (2019) examines what factors affect how many local friends migrant residents have and finds that positive neighbourly relationship increases the likelihood of having local friends. Furthermore, Xu et al. (2022) examine the general intergroup relationship between migrant and locals, defined here as quality of the relationship (amicable to having little interaction, 2002: 5) and reveal that higher socio-economic status is associated with better intergroup relations, whilst a higher concentration of migrants in a neighbourhood hinders positive intergroup relations. Most existing studies find that different neighbourhood characteristics play a significant role in determining the quantity and quality of intergroup relations, whereby more neighbourly relations result in better intergroup relations, and high migrant concentration and neighbourhood poverty is associated with poorer intergroup relations (Wang et al., 2017c; Xu et al., 2022, 2023). Whilst specific results may differ amongst the aforementioned studies, what they have in common is the fact that the concept of intergroup is also highly relevant in urban China. These studies have helped to ground the concept of intergroup, which originated from a Western context, into the Chinese context and provided further evidence of the importance of the neighbourhood in determining intergroup relations (Laurence and Bentley, 2016; Putnam, 2007; Vervoort, 2012).

To move the research on intergroup relations in urban China forward, we argue that in addition to understanding what affects intergroup relations, there is also a need to explore what benefits intergroup relations have in the Chinese case. To put it another way, what evidence is there that positive intergroup relationships are beneficial in China and in what ways? So far, studies exploring these questions are very scarce. Contributing towards this lacunae is the study by Zou (2023, this issue), which shows that intergroup relationships are positively associated with migrant entrepreneurship. Drawing on a major migrant household survey, Zou (2023, this issue) uncovers that migrants who have more social ties with local residents are more likely to be migrant entrepreneurs and take greater risks when running their business. Furthermore, Wang et al. (2020) reveals that migrant residents who have better intergroup neighbourly relations with local residents are also more likely to engage in community activities. This is because intergroup neighbouring helps to break down stigmas and the fear of discrimination, which often prevent migrants from participating in community activities. Another avenue in need of further research is the recognition of the great and growing diversity amongst China’s migrant population. So far, studies have focused on the relationship between Han rural and urban migrants with local Han residents but to our limited knowledge, there are no studies exploring the intergroup relationship between ethnic minority residents and Han residents in China. Similarly, there are also no studies exploring intergroup relations between migrants from different provinces where local customs, cultural values and dialects may differ significantly. The next section will discuss the growing diversity and the growing awareness of diversity amongst the migrant population further.

Emerging migration trends and trajectories under China’s changing urbanisation approach

China’s migrant population has not only grown over the years but also diversified. Studies so far mostly focus on rural migrants moving to primarily Chinese mega-cities, but now there are also large groups of international migrants coming from both the Global North and South, return migration to villages and townships, as well as urban migrants moving to larger cities, amongst other migration flows (Hao and Tang, 2015; Wu and Wang, 2014; Zhu and Qian, 2021). One major trend that can be observed is that over the years, research on the migrant population has become more fine-grained. Earlier studies tended to focus on the hukou (household registration) status as a way to differentiate between different migrant populations (Chan, 2009). The most commonly researched migrants are so-called rural migrants, who are essentially migrants from rural areas in China and hold a non-local and agricultural hukou. Rural migrants are often juxtaposed to urban migrants who migrated from urban areas and hold a non-local and non-agricultural hukou (Wu and Wang, 2014). Though both rural and urban migrants hold a non-local hukou, and are thus excluded from certain welfare entitlements, the general argument is that urban migrants tend to be less discriminated against, have better jobs and living conditions and have better access to some welfare entitlements compared to rural migrants (Wu and Wang, 2014). Whilst discrimination towards rural residents pre-dates the hukou system, the system has nonetheless institutionalised rural discrimination by assigning inferior welfare entitlements to rural residents and migrants. In this sense, hukou-based distinction of migrants sadly remains the most significant way to define a migrant identity. However, in the recent decade, there has been nonetheless positive changes whereby many medium to small cities have relaxed their hukou and welfare entitlement system. Mega-cities such as Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen, however, still have very stringent hukou restrictions. The tightening of hukou restrictions in China large cities and the relaxation of the hukou system in medium and smaller cities is due in part to China’s urbanisation approach. During the 90s and 2000s, even China’s largest cities were hugely dependent on cheap migrant labour for their mushrooming manufacturing-based industries. Consequently, despite unequal welfare entitlements, large cities did not restrict the influx of rural migrants. However, in the recent decade, the economies of mega-cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have matured and large city governments no longer wish to purely rely on manufacturing for their economy. Instead, they aim to create an economy based on high tech, research and development, and service and consumption (Zhang, 2015; Zhu et al., 2023). At the same time, in the eyes of the state, large cities have become too big and overcrowded and therefore need to remove some of their residents who do not contribute towards ‘essential’ functions in these large cities. As a result, there has been a concerted effort to remove primarily rural migrants, who work in low-skilled jobs, from major cities such as Beijing through, for instance, large-scale demolition of informal settlements (Liu and Wong, 2018; Zeng et al., 2019). Concurrent with the removal of rural migrants in large cities, hukou regulations have relaxed considerably in smaller and medium-sized cities, where children from migrants are now allowed to go to the same schools as local residents (Hao, 2022; Lu et al., 2019). The relaxation is partly an effort to alleviate the influx of migrants to large cities and partly because smaller and medium-sized cities wish to attract more migrants and thereby sustain their need for continued urbanisation. As a result of these regulation changes, the role of hukou may no longer be as significant as, for instance, a decade ago, although it still remains hugely important in determining the livelihood and welfare of migrants in China. Nevertheless, many migration scholars have realised that more fine-grained categories of migrant groups are needed to understand the highly variegated challenges facing different kinds of migrants. One increasingly important way to understand the diversity within the migrant population is to distinguish between so-called intra- and inter-provincial migrants (Cao et al., 2018; Su et al., 2018). Migrants who move within their own province are more likely to settle down in their destination cities and tend to face fewer challenges compared to those who migrate to a different province. One potential reason for this is because of the many more shared cultural characteristics, such as shared dialect, between migrant and local residents living within the same province (Su et al., 2018). Additionally, Lin (2023, this issue) finds that in Fuzhou, compared to intra-provincial migrants, inter-provincial migrants struggle more to move closer to the city centre, where the high-quality housing tends to concentrate, likely due to their lower income. Studies on inter- and intra-provincial migrants signal that China’s rural migrant population is far more diverse and that more fine-grained classifications based on culture, language, the economic status and level of urbanisation in different regions can all affect the livelihood of migrants.

Recently, along with China’s diversification of urban development strategies, migration patterns in China have changed and the concerns of scholars and government officials are also shifting accordingly. China’s urban economy, especially in large metropolises such as Shanghai and Beijing, is no longer solely reliant on labour-intensive industries but is aiming to move to high-tech and innovation-based development. There is a concerted effort from the state to slowly move away from the ‘world factory’ model and to move towards fostering indigenous high-tech and R&D development (Zhang, 2015; Zhu et al., 2023). The changing development priorities in large Chinese cities is also shining a spotlight on a different kind of migrants, namely the so-called high-skilled migrants (Cui, 2020; Cui et al., 2016). High-skilled migrants, defined in China as those who hold at least a bachelor’s degree or have an equivalent level of working experience (Lu, 2023, this issue), are an essential element to realise China’s aim of shifting from ‘manufactured in China’ to ‘invented and developed in China’. In many ways, high-skilled migrants can be considered as the Chinese equivalent of the creative or capitalist class (Florida, 2005; Sklair, 2005). They are a group of highly educated and ‘creative’ migrants who have a lot of spending power and, in the Chinese case, work in sectors that the state deem as ‘highly skilled’ such as R&D and are essential to upgrading China’s urban economy. Against a backdrop of intense intercity competition for these high-skilled migrants, many cities have introduced favourable policies ranging from offering subsidised housing to giving local hukous (Wang and Wu, 2019). Oftentimes, the development of high-tech industrial zones or science parks involves developing subsidised housing, sometimes known as talent housing, and a high-quality urban environment in order to attract high-skilled staff members (Geng et al., 2023; Zhu et al., 2023). The number of migrants deemed ‘high skilled’ has grown considerably over the years and statistics show that in 2010 around 14% (32 million) of the floating population are high-skilled migrants (Cui, 2020: 546). Compared to migrants who work in labour-intensive jobs, high-skilled migrants have much better access to welfare benefits and housing in Chinese cities, although still lower than that of local residents (Cui, 2020; Cui et al., 2016). Skilled migrants are also more likely to settle permanently in cities (Lin and Zhu, 2022). However, even amongst this comparatively more privileged group of migrants, there are still many challenges associated with accessing affordable housing, for instance, as Lu (2023, this issue) reveals in her study. The growing trend to study and categorise migrants based on the type of occupation or industry they work in can also be observed elsewhere. China’s recent shift to e-commerce and platform economy has resulted in a significant increase in low-paid and insecure occupations such as urban delivery workers (Sun and Zhao, 2022). These jobs often have low entry requirements and are practised by both urban residents and migrants alike. In response to this growing industry, Tang et al., (2023, this issue) explore the livelihood of food delivery workers in Chinese cities and compare the reasons why locals, urban and rural migrants work in this industry and their socio-economic conditions. The study reveals that rural migrants are in a much more precarious situation because they tend work in food delivery as a last resort, whereas locals and urban migrants use this as an additional source of income or a temporary employment whilst finding a better job.

Conclusion

This special issue explores how migration in Chinese cities and studies on this topic have evolved in recent years and identified some emerging trends that can also be of relevance to other contexts. One main finding from this special issue is that China’s migrant population is diversifying. Some of this diversification is because of China’s changing approach towards economic and urban development has given rise to new types of migrants. One major shift is China’s emphasis on expanding from its world factory economic model, which chiefly relies in the manufacturing industry and cheap labour, to developing the high tech and creative industries that rely on so-called high-skilled migrants (Cui, 2020; Geng et al., 2023; Zhang, 2015; Zhu et al., 2023). In order to attract high-skilled migrants, Chinese cities provide all sorts of benefits including subsidized talent housing. Contributing to this research, Lu (2023, this issue) reveals that despite the various housing subsidies, some young high-skilled migrants still struggle to access such housing and explores what strategies to adopt to cope with these challenges. Another change to China’s changing urban development approach is that its emphasis on the urbanisation of rural residents through urban resettlement has now become an even more important part of China’s urban development approach. The emphasis on resettlement is no longer just about freeing up land for urban development but rather the state is also keen to reterritorialize rural residents into urban citizens and consumers (Hong et al., 2021; Wang, 2022; Yang and Qian, 2022). This rise in resettled rural residents in China shines a new light on the intersections between migrants and resettled residents in relation to their experience of moving or being removed from one place to another, the reasons that led to their move but also the social and economic difficulties and challenges in adapting to their new place of residence (Roast et al., 2022; Wang, 2022). A comparison of migrants and resettled residents also prompts us to rethink where to draw the conceptual line between resettlement and migration and whether such a distinction is still helpful. Articles in this special issue contribute to this discussion. Zhang et al. (2023, this issue) introduce the category of ‘suburban migrants’, who are essentially resettled rural residents who chose to give their compensation housing in the urban peripheries and instead moved to the inner city. The comparison of suburban migrants with urban and rural migrants helps us understand that resettled residents are not so different from other types of migrants in relation to their career development. Likewise, Zhou (2023, this issue) also conceptualises resettled local Shanghai residents as ‘passive relocation migrants’ and highlights the difficulty in re-connecting with their new place of residence and its new residents. In comparison, Liang et al. (2023, this issue) deploys the concept of ‘reterritorialization’, which has also been used in urban resettlement studies (Rogers and Wilmsen, 2020; Wang, 2022), to examine how rural migrants adapt to their life in urban villages. All these studies uncover new avenues where interdisciplinary thinking drawing on urban resettlement and migration studies can lead to new fruitful discoveries and ways of thinking.

Another reason for the diversification is because studies have become more fine-grained in their various categorisations of migrant groups. Whilst earlier studies have focused on rural and urban migrants, who are all from the Han ethnicity, research on other ethnicities have proliferated in recent years such as research on African immigrants in Guangzhou (Bork-Hüffer et al., 2016; Niu et al., 2020). Wang and Han (2023, this issue) contributes to this burgeoning literature by examining the place attachment and livelihood of Muslim migrants in Xi’An and finds that the ethnic enclave with its religious institutions forms an important part of the way Muslim migrants feel a sense of belonging in the city. In addition to ethnicity, this special issue also delves into other ways to differentiate between different migrant sub-groups. Lin (2023, this issue) examines the residential mobility of intra- and inter-provincial migrants, thereby highlighting the importance of regional differences such as different dialects or local customs. Furthermore, Tang et al. (2023, this issue) focuses on a growing employment sector that has many rural migrant employees, namely the food delivery sector, and examines their motivation in joining this industry. Whilst the growing awareness of China’s diverse migrant population is encouraging, there remains a lot of work to be done. For instance, how much do these various categories and socially-constructed migrant identities intersect with each other, and which ones (if any) matter more to the migrant residents themselves?

Finally, this special issue also discusses the enduring significance of the neighbourhood for migrants in relation to their place attachment and social relationships. Whilst we acknowledge that there are many other places or scales of the city that can play an even more important role in the lives of migrants, we believe the residential neighbourhood still matters, albeit in different ways and with different degrees of significance to different migrants. This can be seen in the study by Liu (2023, this issue), whose qualitative comparison of four types of neighbourhoods in Beijing reveals the role of neighbourhoods in the social lives of rural migrants. In addition to the social network of migrants, migrant enclaves can also assist in the entrepreneurial endeavours of migrants through its tight-knit social support system and the ease of hiring trustworthy staff members or acquiring business through fellow migrants (Liu et al., 2015). Likewise, Zou (2023, this issue) also finds that positive social ties, especially with local residents, increase the likelihood of migrants becoming entrepreneurs. Findings from urban China therefore also contribute to the wider debate on the role of the neighbourhood in a many aspects of migrants (Forrest, 2008; Kearns and Parkinson, 2001). In conclusion, we hope that this special issue can stimulate more discussion, new perspectives and methods to study migration and migrants in urban China and generate knowledge that can be of interest to the wider global urban studies community.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the journal editor and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

Zheng Wang gratefully acknowledges funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) [ES/W003104/1].

Author biographies

Zheng Wang is a Lecturer in Sustainable Cities at the Department of Geography, King’s College London. His work takes urban China as a critical site to develop theoretical insights for a more global urban studies. Zheng’s latest ESRC-funded research project examines the long-term social impacts and community rebuilding efforts of mega urban projects in urban China.

Liyue Lin is a Professor at the Institute of Geography, Fujian Normal University. Her primary research interests include migration and urban and rural development. Her ongoing research projects focus on the residential mobility of migrants, return migration and urbanisation of migrant sending areas in China. She has published relevant articles in international journals, including Cities and Habitat International.

Shuangshuang Tang is a Professor at the School of Geography Nanjing Normal University. Her primary research interests include the migration and well-being of disadvantaged people. Her ongoing research projects focus on rural in-migration and the well-being of rural migrant women in China. She has published relevant articles in international journals, including Urban Studies, Geoforum, the Journal of Rural Studies and Environment and Planning A.

Yang Xiao is an Associate Professor in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University, China. He received his PhD degree in Urban Planning from Cardiff University, UK. His main research interests are big data mining and the interaction between the built environment and human behaviour.

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