Spatial distribution and factors influencing the floating population in China

Abstract

By studying the census data and relevant socioeconomic data at the county level, we analyzed the spatiotemporal properties of the floating population (the number of migrants who did not change their household residence registration) during the period 1990-2000 in China. The results showed that, first, the spatial distribution of migrants (called "floaters" here) became more concentrated in the cities during the 1990s. Second, the number of floaters increased rapidly during this period, and the area in which floaters settled expanded quickly and grew into four population explosion belts: the coastal, Changjiang River, Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, and national border belts. This coincided well with the economic development of these regions, which was authorized and supported by the national government. Third, the number of interprovincial floaters increased rapidly and exceeded that of intraprovincial floaters in the 1990s. To determine the controlling factors of such migration in China during the 1990s, we selected about 100 cities with a large population of floaters to analyze the relationship between the number of floaters and 10 socioeconomic variables. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted to obtain quantitative relationships between the number of floaters and the variables. Consequently, we found that four factors, city GDP, passenger trips per 10, 000 persons, per capita GDP, and foreign direct investment, could explain 83.7% of the number of floaters in 2000. City GDP showed the highest standard correlation with the number of floaters, which suggests that a highly developed economy is the most important factor to attract floaters. We also attempted to obtain a quantitative relationship between the number of floaters and the socioeconomic variables for all counties in China for which data were available (2,327 counties), and found a fairly close relationship between the number of floaters and county GDP in 2000.