This dissertation consists of three self-contained but related papers, which examine the policy process of migration in the villages of origin, the selective socioeconomic mobility of rural-to-urban migrants, and the social consequences of migration in urban destinations, respectively. The first research identifies the harsh economic conditions, specifically, the predatory taxation in rural China as a strong “pushing” force for the peasants’ migration, and demonstrates that the tax-for-fee reform alleviates the rural households’ financial burdens and therefore slows down the Chinese rural migration. The second essay demonstrates that the earnings premium of urban hukou is only limited to a subgroup of rural-origin people who obtain their urban hukou status through a highly selec...[ Read more ]

This dissertation consists of three self-contained but related papers, which examine the policy process of migration in the villages of origin, the selective socioeconomic mobility of rural-to-urban migrants, and the social consequences of migration in urban destinations, respectively. The first research identifies the harsh economic conditions, specifically, the predatory taxation in rural China as a strong “pushing” force for the peasants’ migration, and demonstrates that the tax-for-fee reform alleviates the rural households’ financial burdens and therefore slows down the Chinese rural migration. The second essay demonstrates that the earnings premium of urban hukou is only limited to a subgroup of rural-origin people who obtain their urban hukou status through a highly selective process, and furthermore, this earnings premium is positively associated with the propensity of hukou conversion. The third paper discovers that the mistrust in urban China could be attributed to the massive in-migration, and the fundamental mechanism underlying this negative correlation between migration and trust, is however the lack of intergroup contact between in-migrants and local residents. The three essays together reveal the dynamics of China’s massive population migration process.