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Types of the return migrations from mega-cities to local cities in China:A case study of Zhumadian's return migrants

2013; Wiley; Linguagem: Inglês

1745-5871

Tingting Yan,

Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

After three decades of reform and opening up,the socioeconomic gap between mega-cities in eastern coastal and inland cities has been largely expanded,especially as millions of migrant workers from local cities started to settle in large or coastal cities.Accordingly,how to attract return migrants and local talents becomes the key challenge to the development of local cities.Therefore,return migrants of Zhumadian were studied as the case through fieldwork survey and questionnaire interviews.The study includes three sections: firstly,in 2009 we distributed the questionnaire of The return intention of Henan migrant workers in together with Shenzhen Urban Planning and Design Institute to examine the aspiration of migrants to return to their hometowns.We made the survey across 16 sites in Shenzhen,such as Phoenix Industrial Zone,Fuyong Town,Foxcom Industrial Zone,Xili Town,Tea Light Village,Xili Town Jiuxiangling,Yantian and so on.In early 2010 we collected a total of 405 qualified questionnaires.In the sample,79.5% of the respondents came from Zhumadian,whilst about 97% of them came from the city and its surrounding cities;Secondly,in 2010,we interviewed the government officials that engaged in the population and labor statistics of Zhumadian to examine the reasons of migration,the feature of return migrants,as well as related policies undertaken by the local governments.After that,we interviewed a total of 38 return entrepreneurs at Zhumadian to collect their information of employments,housing,job satisfactions,etc.Finally,in 2011,we interviewed nine salespersons of two typical real estate companies to collect the housing information of house-purchasing expatriates.Meanwhile,a total of 12 house-purchasing expatriates were interviewed by telephone calls.Against the context that the local city has developed an inertial development model and the local developments has been largely depended on foreign capital(wages mailing back from migrant workers and investors),a great deal of expatriates have been identified.It is found that high values are set on the social network of destination while low values are set on cultural infrastructure,government administrative efficiency and business environment of origin.Moreover,migrants prefer to return to their hometown to settle down.In details,there are two types of return migration,namely U-turn and I-turn.U-turn migration refers to those migrants who return to cities or towns of local prefecture,while I-turn migration means migrants return to rural areas.House-return-migration(HRM) and entrepreneur-return-migration(ERM) have been identified in these two types of return migration.Moreover,the relation between these two types of return migration has also been identified: HRM is an earlier phase of ERM in a single return course.As for ERM,parts of the return migrants are or will become entrepreneurs.The occupations they undertake at the hometown are positively related to their occupations in Shenzhen.Although the relationship with family and hometown attracts migrant returns,there are also high dissatisfactions or difficulties for entrepreneurs,such as infrastructure,sanitation and housing.Moreover,poor investment environment,such as fund,information,infrastructure and so on may also impair the return of migrants.As such,in order to attract return migration and develop local economy,the local governments of Zhumadian should make more efforts to improve the level of residential satisfactions for return migrants.