Spatial Distribution of Internal Migrants and Public Service Accessibility
With the deepening of urbanization in China,the large-scale population migration from rural areas to cit-ies,and from small and medium-sized cities to large cities has become a critical factor affecting the transition of the Chi-nese economy toward more balanced and high-quality development.In 2020,the internal migrants in China were nearly 376 million,accounting for approximately 26.04％of the total population;and the rural migrants were nearly 170 mil-lion,accounting for 45.13％of the total internal migrants.Since 2010,China has entered a critical period after the Lewis turning point,the demographic transition characteristics such as aging and low fertility rate have increased the demand of internal migrants for local public services,such as medical treatment,leading to changes in driving forces for China's ur-banization.The previous public service system based on Hukou no longer significantly affects the migration decision of in-ternal migrants,while the accessibility of public services becomes increasingly important.This paper builds a spatial general equilibrium model to theoretically explain the micro-mechanism of the impact of pub-lic service accessibility on the internal migrant's staying expectations.In addition to employment,the access of internal mi-grants to local public services is also a crucial factor in forming stable staying expectations.The higher the accessibility of public services,the higher the migrants'staying expectations.Furthermore,this paper uses the data from the 2014-2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey(CMDS)provided by the National Health Commission of China to verify the theoretical hypothesis.To increase the validity of the conclusion,the CMDS data is matched with China's prefecture-level cities and above,and a paired set of the outflow and inflow location of the migrant is established.Based on the data matched with cit-ies,the ratio of migrant individuals participating in local basic medical and pension insurance to the total sample size in the same city is set as a unified explanatory variable to measure the accessibility of public services,while the willingness of mi-grants to stay is the dependent variable.Empirical research confirms the theoretical hypothesis,that is,the public service supply system linked to local Hukou restricts the accessibility of public services,thus significantly reducing the staying ex-pectations of migrants.To test the robustness of the conclusions,the instrumental variables method,controlling outflow and inflow locations,and replacing variables all confirm the basic conclusion.The heterogeneity analysis shows that the ac-cessibility of public services in the inflow locations has a greater impact on migrant individuals in the central and western re-gions,and those migrant samples under 30 years old who have been in the city for 2-4 years,or with urban Hukou,or those migrants with more than 5 years long-term willingness.Furthermore,the mechanism of the impact of the differences in local public service supply systems on public services accessibility is verified through the presence of residence permits and migrants'behavior of paying medical insurance in different places.The main innovations of this paper are as follows.Firstly,this paper incorporates wages and public services into a uni-fied research framework,providing theoretical explanations and empirical evidence on how to better guide rational popula-tion mobility by coordinating the roles of government and the market.Secondly,based on a paired set of inflow and outflow locations of CMDS data,this paper quantifies the effect of urban public service on migrants'expectations by comparing the relative level in inflow and outflow areas,or the national average.Thirdly,this paper confirms that the mechanism of"exis-tence"and"difference"of the public service system based on Hukou can be different by analyzing"having a residence permit or not"and"paying for medical insurance in different locations".This paper further deepens the understanding of"equal ac-cess to basic public services".The separation of the urban and rural public service systems significantly hinders rational labor migration and clears the surplus labor market.From the realistic significance of research,this paper provides policy implica-tions for promoting the equalization of basic public services to guide migrants'mobility against the background of boosting the domestic economy and common prosperity,that is,expanding the accessibility of local public services to migrants and unifying of urban and rural public service systems.
Population MigrationAnticipated Stay ExpectationsPublic Service Supply and AccessibilityChina Migrants Dynamic Survey(CMDS)
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
