This dissertation presents three essays on neighborhood effects and social consequences of individuals in Chinese cities. Although with different focuses, these essays examine one broad question: how do personal life experiences interacting with social environments in residential neighborhoods determine the social adaptation of individuals in cities? The first essay examines how participation in migrant enclaves, measured as the overrepresentation of group members of the same county of origin in certain residential neighborhoods and industrial sectors, is associated with returns to human capital in the labor market in Shenzhen. The second essay examines whether exposure to population diversity, characterized as distinct boundaries formed by the spatial concentration of migrant g...[ Read more ]

This dissertation presents three essays on neighborhood effects and social consequences of individuals in Chinese cities. Although with different focuses, these essays examine one broad question: how do personal life experiences interacting with social environments in residential neighborhoods determine the social adaptation of individuals in cities? The first essay examines how participation in migrant enclaves, measured as the overrepresentation of group members of the same county of origin in certain residential neighborhoods and industrial sectors, is associated with returns to human capital in the labor market in Shenzhen. The second essay examines whether exposure to population diversity, characterized as distinct boundaries formed by the spatial concentration of migrant group of the same province of origin in certain residential neighborhoods, is associated with inter-group prejudice against migrants among native residents in Shanghai. The third essay examines how neighborhood social integration, measured as neighborhood collective efficacy, conditions the spread of social stressors caused by exposure to neighbors’ jumping suicide in developing mental distress in Hong Kong. By linking individual-level data from social survey with neighborhood-level information from government register-based data through geo-location and using techniques of spatial data analysis, this dissertation advances the empirical and theoretical research on urban sociology in the Chinese context. Moreover, studying the neighborhood effects in typical Chinese cities contributes to knowledge of how social context in residential neighborhoods structures individuals’ adaptation in the processes of migration and urbanization.