Recent decades have seen dramatic changes in China’s migration situation. China’s floating migrant population grew rapidly during the late 1980s, and continued to grow during the 1990s until in 2000, there were over 140 million floating migrants in China. Floating migrants are now to be found in every Chinese province, in cities, towns and villages, across the country, working in a range of occupations. This dissertation compares data from the 2005 1% Population Sample Survey (NBSC 2007), the most recent large-scale, nationally-representative survey to have been carried out in China, with data from the 2000 Chinese Population Census (NBSC 2002) in order to investigate how patterns of floating migration, and characteristics of the floating migrant population, have changed between 2000 and 2005. Important changes to the spatial distribution of floating migration are identified. Characteristics of the floating migrant population including gender makeup, age structure, type of destination and origin (rural/urban), reasons for migration, time since migration, and size of population are evaluated, and compared with past findings, particularly those from the 2000 Census. Finally, some potential explanations for the changes seen are presented.
URL : http://www.lse.ac.uk/government/research/resgroups/MSU/documents/workingPapers/WP_2011_07.pdf