Great Expectations?The Subjective Well-being of Rural–Urban
Migrants in China
JOHN KNIGHT University of Oxford,UK
and
RAMANI GUNATILAKA *
Monash University,Melbourne,Australia
Summary.—This paper is among the first to link the literatures on migration and on subjective well-being in developing countries.It pos the question:why do rural–urban migrant houholds ttled in urban China have an average happiness score lower than rural houholds?Three basic hypothes are examined:migrants had fal expectations about their future urban conditions,or about their future urban aspirations,or about their future lves.Estimated happiness functions and decomposition analys,bad on a 2002na-tional houhold survey,indicate that certain features of migrant conditions make for unhappiness,and that their high aspirations in relation to achievement,influenced by their new reference groups,also make for unhappiness.Although the possibility of lection bias am
ong migrants cannot be ruled out,it is apparently difficult for migrants to form unbiad expectations about life in a new and different world.
Ó2009Elvier Ltd.All rights rerved.
Key words —aspirations,China,happiness,relative deprivation,rural–urban migration,subjective well-being
1.INTRODUCTION
This paper contributes to the voluminous literature on rur-al–urban migration in developing countries.It does so from a new angle—by examining the subjective well-being of respon-dents living in migrant houholds in China.It rais an inter-esting puzzle.The normal assumption of migration theory is that rural people migrate in order to rai their utility,at least in the long run.Yet our sample of migrants has a mean hap-piness score of 2.3,well below the mean score of the rural sam-ple (2.7)and also below that of the urban sample (2.5).Of cour,initial hardship is to be expected—and indeed it is pre-dicted by the models—but the are migrants who have estab-lished urban houholds and who average urban stay is no less than 7.5years.Did the migrants come with excessively great expectations?
Section 2briefly explains the theory of the decision to mi-grate,and the implications of models bad on the theory.Sec-tion 3provides background on migrants in China and describes the data to be analyzed,and Section 4provides the hypothes to be examined.Section 5reports the results from our estimates of happiness functions.Section 6considers whether the relatively low happiness of migrants is due to lf-lection.Section 7summarizes and concludes.
2.MODELS OF MIGRATION
The economic literature on internal migration in developing countries is surveyed in Lucas (1997):there is emphasis on util-ity as providing the motive for migration but there is no men-tion of measured happiness.The original probabilistic model of rural–urban migration (Todaro,1967)has spawned a pleth-ora of models,but almost all of them have the following
features in common.First,the model is bad on the assump-tion either of utility maximization or of income maximization where income rves as a proxy for utility.Second,the worker is assumed to migrate if the discounted prent value (in terms of utility or income)of migrating to the urban location (given an expected length of urban stay)exceeds the discounted pres-ent value of remaining in the rural location.Third,the migrant takes into account the probability of obtaining a desired urban j
ob in any period,and the need to remain unemployed or in a low-income activity until such a job is found.Thus,fourth,the relevant urban discounted prent value is an ‘‘expected value,”reprented by the wage in a desired urban job multi-plied by the probability of obtaining one,this product being discounted by the degree of risk aversion.
Consider the implications for migration equilibrium.With unrestricted migration and no transaction costs,migration takes place until the rural supply price,as defined above,is equal to this urban ‘‘expected wage.”Marginal migrants are indifferent as to whether they migrate or stay,expecting the same utility from both actions,but intra-marginal migrants benefit from their migration in the form of economic rents.Gi-ven that the expected wage incorporates an initial period of arch and some probability of failure,migrants who have undergone initial hardship and cured a desired job should also derive a net benefit.Thus,migration models predict that migrants who have made the transition into urban employ-ment and living have more utility than they would have
*We are grateful to three referees for helpful comments,to the Nuffield Foundation for supporting the rearch from its Small Grants Scheme,and to the Global Poverty Rearch Programme of the UK ESRC for a grant which helped to fund the collection of data on subjective well-being in the survey on which the rearch is bad.Final revision accepted:March 27,2009.
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World Development Vol.38,No.1,pp.113–124,2010
Ó2009Elvier Ltd.All rights rerved
0305-750X/$-e front matter
/locate/worlddev
doi:
10.1016/j.worlddev.2009.03.002
113
木板雕刻received had they remained at home.Can this prediction be reconciled with the relatively low happiness that we obrve? An alternative theoretical approach to rural–urban migra-tion is to view it as income diversification in order to reduce the risks faced by houholds in a poor rural environment (Stark,1991,chap.5).Here the migrant is assumed to remain a part of the rural houhold.In principle,urban income, being imperfectly correlated with rural income,should reduce the variability of houhold income.Insofar as houhold members place a value on income stability,the subjective well-being of the houhold as a whole should be raid even if houhold income is not.However,it is possible that migra-tion redistributes happiness within the houhold,with the mi-grant becoming less happy and non-migrants becoming more happy as a result of migrant remittances and of the greater curity,even if not greater income,that the provide.Can this interpretation be reconciled with the ttled nature of the migrant houholds and with their income net of remit-tances?
Another view of rural–urban migration is that it stems from the‘‘push”of rural poverty rather than from
urban‘‘pull”fac-tors(for instance,Sabates-Wheeler,Sabates,&Castaldo, 2008).There is a conceptual difficulty in distinguishing push and pull,as theory predicts that it is the expected rural–urban difference which provides the incentive for migration.We can standardize for the obrved characteristics of migrants in comparing rural and urban incomes and happiness.However, we cannot standardize for unmeasured characteristics,such as own or family misfortune,unhappy personality,or bad rela-tionships.Could unobrved idiosyncracies explain the low happiness of migrants that we obrve?
3.THE BACKGROUND AND THE DATA
The phenomenon of rural–urban migration in China has been different from that in most other poor countries(Cai, Park,&Zhao,2008;Knight&Song,1999,chaps.8and9). During the period of central planning the movement of peo-ple,and especially movement from the communes to the cities, was strictly controlled and restricted.Even after the com-mencement of economic reform in1978,migration was very limited although temporary migration was permitted when ur-ban demand for labor exceeded the resident supply.The sys-tem of residential registration(hukou)initially prevented and later hindered rural people from ttling in the cities.The hardships and disadvantages that temporary migrants faced in the cities caud many to prefer local non-farm jobs when-ever they we
re available(Zhao,1999).When,increasingly,mi-grants began to ttle in the cities with their families,they were subject to discrimination in access to jobs,housing,education, and health care.City governments favor their own residents, and migrants are generally treated as cond class citizens (Knight&Song,1999,chap.9;Knight&Song,2005,chaps. 5and6;Solinger,1999).For instance,they are allowed only into the least attractive jobs that urban hukou residents shun; many enter lf-employment,which is less regulated.Although the labor markets for urban and rural hukou workers have be-come less gmented over time,the degree of competition be-tween them remained very limited in2002(Knight&Yueh, 2008).
Despite the drawbacks,rural–urban migration has bur-geoned as the controls on movement have been ead and the demand for urban labor has incread.Two official esti-mates of the stock of rural hukou migrants in the cities place the number at81and84million people in2002(Cai et al.,2008,p.192).It is very likely the ca that we are obrving ‘‘the greatest migration in human history.”Although a large percentage of migrants have chon to come temporarily to the cities with the intention of returning home,an increasing percentage wish to ttle in the cities,and are establishing ur-ban houholds.Thus,many are revealing their preferences for urban living.
In this study we examine a sample of rural–urban migrants living in houholds.As we shall e,thes
e are migrants who are ttled in the cities.The sample was collected as part of a national houhold survey,organized by the Institute of Economics,Chine Academy of Social Sciences,and designed by Chine and foreign scholars.The survey was conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics early in2003and its informa-tion generally relates to2002.It is described in Gustafsson,Li, and Sicular(2008,pp.331–353).There is very little panel(re-call)element in the survey,and none that we can u.The ur-ban and rural samples are sub-samples of the official annual national houhold survey.However,becau the official ur-ban survey does not yet cover rural hukou houholds,the rur-al–urban migrant sample was bad on a sampling of houholds in migrant neighborhoods in the lected cities. The migrant survey contains a great deal of information about the houhold and each of its members,including in-come,consumption,asts,housing,employment,labor mar-ket history,health,education,and rural links.Less commonly, various migrant attitudes and perceptions were explored.The same question was asked of one of the adults in each sampled houhold:‘‘Generally speaking,how happy do you feel?.”The six possible answers were:very happy,happy,so–so, not happy,not happy at all,and do not know.This is a key variable in our analysis.
The analysis must be qualified at the outt.We have to rely on a single cross-ction datat,albeit
rich in relevant infor-mation.The data lack a panel element,including previous in-come and happiness,in particular a measure of happiness prior to migration.The lacunae mean that some of our tests will be weak and inconclusive and some possible explanations will be left unexplored.Nevertheless,the topic and questions are sufficiently important and original to derve afirst at-tempt at answers.The analysis can in turn suggest directions for future rearch and provide pointers for improvingfield surveys and hypothesis tests.
It is helpfulfirst to provide descriptive information about the migrants before prenting the happiness functions that will explain the determinants of subjective well-being.Con-sider the characteristics of tho houhold members—77% of whom were the houhold heads—who responded to the attitudinal questions.Sixty-one percent were men,90%were married,93%were employed,and88%were living with their family.The respondents were generally not pessimistic about the future:7%expected a big increa in real income over the nextfive years,55%a small increa,28%no change,and only 10%a decrea.Rural links were commonly retained:53%had family members who still farmed in the village,51%remitted income to the village,and32%had one child or more children still living in the village.
Even though the mean happiness score of migrants is lower than that of rural people,their mean inco
me is not.The aver-age income per capita of migrant houholds is2.39times that of rural houholds.Even allowing for the smaller number of dependents in migrant houholds by comparing total instead of per capita houhold incomes,the ratio is still1.54.The cor-responding ratios of houhold income per worker and of wage income per employee are2.01and3.02,respectively. Whichever concept is considered most relevant,migrants are
114WORLD DEVELOPMENT
at a considerable income advantage.This compounds the puz-zle:higher income appears not to rai happiness.
Table1shows the percentage distribution of migrants among thefive categories of happiness.We e that over 43%are happy or very happy,and that fewer than12%are un-happy or not at all happy.On the scale of4for very happy down to zero for not at all happy,the mean score is2.37.With migrant houholds divided into income per capita quintiles, the happiness score increas monotonically from 2.13for respondents in the lowest quintile to2.56for tho in the high-est quintile.如何制作新年贺卡
The respondents in the categories unhappy and not at all happy were asked the reason for their unhappiness.The pre-dominant reason,offered by over two-thirds of the respon-dents,is that income
is too low.The next most important reason,reported by over11%,is uncertainty about the future, suggesting that incurity is a problem.Discrimination against migrants is mentioned only by2%of the respondents.The evi-dence suggests that income will be an important determinant of migrant happiness.Migrants were asked what they consid-ered to be the most important social problem.Lack of social curity is the most common respon,mentioned by24%of respondents.Environmental pollution comes cond(20%), corruption third(18%),followed by social polarization (11%),discrimination against migrants(10%),and crime(8%). Migrants were asked:‘‘Compared with your experience of living in the rural areas,are you happier living in the city?.”No fewer than56%felt that urban living gave them greater happiness,41%felt that it gave the same,and only3%re-ported greater rural happiness.When asked what they would do if forced to leave the city,more migrants replied that would go to another city(54%)compared to tho who replied that they would go back to their village(39%).The results add to the list of questions.If most migrants view urban living as yielding them greater happiness,and most wish to remain in an urban area,why are their mean happiness scores lower than tho of rural residents?
4.HYPOTHESES
There are veral possible explanations for our puzzle,giv-ing ri to hypothes that we wish to test,
or at least to ex-plore.Ourfirst hypothesis is that migrants,when they decided to migrate from the village,had excessively high expectations of the conditions that they would experience in the city.We shall look for evidence that this might be the ca by considering the characteristics of their urban life that re-duce their welfare.
Second,the puzzle might be solved by recour to the adap-tation theory that has been developed by Easterlin(2001).His argument is that happiness is a function of both income and aspirations,the former having a positive effect and the latter a negative effect.Moreover,as income ris over time,aspira-tions adapt to income,so giving ri to a‘‘hedonic treadmill.”This account is consistent with thefi,by Easterlin, 1974)that happiness ris with income in cross-ction but does not do so in time-ries datats.Easterlin(2001),using successive cross-ction surveys to create a synthetic panel,finds that the income of a cohort ris over the working life and then falls in retirement,but that its average happiness score remains remarkably constant.His explanation draws on the psychological literature to make the distinction between ‘‘decision utility”and‘‘experienced utility”:the utility ex-pected at the time of making a choice and the utility sub-quently experienced from that choice.When respondents are asked to asss their happiness in the past,when their income was lower,they tend to judge it by their current aspirations for income and therefore tend to r
eport that their happiness was lower.Similarly,when they are asked to asss their happiness in the future,when they expect to have higher income,they do not realize that their aspirations will ri along with their in-come and therefore report that their happiness will be higher. Rabin(1998,p.12)summarized thefindings from social psy-chology thus:‘‘we don’t always predict our own future prefer-ences,nor even accurately asss our experienced well-being from past choices.”Easterlin(2001)marshals this evidence as support for his argument that aspirations are a function of income and tend to ri in proportion with income.1
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If current judgements about subjective well-being,whether in the past,the prent,or the future,are bad only on cur-rent aspirations,this might explain why the mean happiness of migrants is lower than that of rural people:aspirations could have rin after having made the decision to migrate. Aspirations might not be quantifiable,but the predictions of the theory can be tested.Similarly,we might alsofind an explanation for why it is that migrants nevertheless generally report that happiness is higher,or at least no lower,in urban areas than in rural areas.The cond hypothesis,like thefirst one,involves fal expectations,but in this ca the expecta-tions are about subjective aspirations rather than about objec-tive outcomes.
The notion that aspirations depend on income relative to that of the relevant reference group,coming
from the sociolog-ical literature(for instance Runciman,1966)has been devel-oped for China in companion papers on subjective well-being(Knight&Gunatilaka,in press;Knight,Song,&Guna-tilaka,2009).Other studies for developing countries whichqq购物号如何开通
Table1.Percentage distribution of happiness,overall and by income per capita quintile
Happiness category Overall Income quintile
1st2nd3rd4th5th5th–1st Very happy 6.35 3.5 6.0 5.8 6.59.8 6.3 Happy37.3327.835.039.342.142.514.7
So–so45.0950.047.143.642.842.0À8.0 Not very happy9.4715.410.38.67.8 5.3À10.1 Not happy at all 1.76 3.3 1.5 2.80.80.5À2.8 Total(number)1985396397397397398
Mean happiness 2.37 2.13 2.34 2.37 2.46 2.560.43 Notes:Data for this table and for all subquent tables are derived from the Rural–urban Migrant Houhold Survey,2002.
The data relate to the houhold member—normally the houhold head—who responded to the question about happiness,and to the income per capita quintile into which that houhold falls.
The happiness score is bad on cardinal values assigned to the qualitative asssments as follows:very happy=4;happy=3;so–so=2;not happy=1; and not at all happy=0.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS?THE SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF RURAL–URBAN MIGRANTS IN CHINA115
show the importance of reference groups include Graham and Pettinato(2002)(shifts in reference norms in Peru and Russia), Kingdon and Knight(2007)(comparison with clo neighbors in South Africa),and Fafchamps and Shilpi(2008)(rural–ur-ban migrants retaining a village reference group in Nepal).If the group with which the migrants compare themlves changes as a result of rural–urban migration and urban ttle-ment,this might explain why their aspirations change.We can test whether migrants show relative deprivation in relation to urban society.
Our third hypothesis draws on theories of migration that are bad on decision-making by the rural family.It is that the prence of members left behind in the village can place a bur-den on the urban members of the two-location family.Insofar as migrants remit part of their income,their own happiness score might fall and that of their rural family might ri. Equivalently,our measure of the income per capita of the ur-ban migrant houhold might overstate its disposable income per capita.
Fourth,our results might be explained by lection bias.The lower mean happiness score of migrants may be the result of their,or of their houholds,having characteristics different from tho of the rural population as a whole.If this were the ca,they would indeed have been less happy on average had they remained in the village.Such happiness-reducing characteristics might be available in the datat—and thus capable of being conditioned on—or they might be unobrv-able to the rearcher.For instance,it is possible that tho rural dwellers who by nature are melancholy or have high and unfulfilled aspirations hold their rural life to be responsi-ble and expect that migration will provide a cure.They might thus be more prone to leave the village for the city.If the lf-lected migrants are intrinsically less happy,this might ex-plain why the sample of rural–urban migrants has a lower
Table2.Happiness functions of rural–urban migrants:OLS estimation
Mean or proportion Full sample Below median
duration Above median duration
(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)
Log of per capita houhold
income2002
8.550.197186***0.208102***0.200896***0.129454***0.276563*** Expect big increa in income
over next5years
0.070.323740***0.298398***0.295402***0.267288**0.337325** Expect small increa in income
over next5years
0.550.0479570.0261760.02440.050754À0.003458 Expect decrea in income over
next5years
0.10À0.399027***À0.403299***À0.402897***À0.322104**À0.450602*** Male0.61À0.275356**À0.268374**À0.270976**À0.361654***0.044724 Married0.90À0.00971À0.05981À0.060922À0.267322*0.292311 Male and married0.550.333382***0.349128***0.351775***0.504235***À0.020951 Education(years)7.99À0.00145À0.009834À0.010387À0.019562À0.003055 Netfinancial asts(‘000Yuan)16.51À0.00008À0.000247À0.000256À0.000415***0.000648* Unemployed0.01À0.
06881À0.056733À0.058675À0.3140960.293762 Working hours(‘00per year)31.94À0.001380.0000930.0000970.000159À0.000113
In good health0.900.112137*0.123086**0.124074**0.0266150.169086** Duration of urban residence
(years)
7.510.018281**0.013580*0.013154*
Duration of urban residence,
squared
84.83À0.000657**À0.000547*À0.000529*
Log of average per capita urban
income in city of current
residence
夏天衣服8.97À0.120432À0.127660.005306À0.280012**
Log of average rural income in
province of origin
7.810.0700210.0783820.1245060.051889
Living with family members0.880.1347260.142820.207858**0.128347 Number of relatives and friends
in city
7.190.003869*0.003822*0.0076090.001566
Child still in village0.32À0.124977**À0.143516**À0.125387**À0.113113
Ln remittances per capita 2.760.006364
Hou area per capita11.390.002620.0027450.0006070.003381 Living in own hou0.110.0345930.0366570.0574360.026951
No heating0.65À0.149865**À0.150708**À0.204220***À0.116598* Constant0.541127** 1.024808 1.
0739990.465825 1.670172
R20.0770.1000.1010.0910.134 Number of obrvations193018501850925926 Notes:Dependent variable:Score of happiness bad on cardinal values assigned to qualitative asssments as follows:very happy=4;happy=3;so–so=2;not happy=1;and not at all happy=0.
Eqns.(1)–(3)are for the full sample.Eqns.(4)and(5)are bad on sub-samples lected according to the length of stay in urban areas.
The omitted categories in the dummy variable analys are:single female;employed or labor force non-participant;not healthy;in normal or wor than normal mood;and no change in income expected in the nextfive years.
方向英语In this and subquent tables,***,**,and*denote statistical significance at the one percent,five percent and ten percent levels,respectively.
Eqns.(2)–(5)have been clustered at city level for robust standard errors.
116WORLD DEVELOPMENT
mean happiness score than the sample reprentative of the rural population of which they were previously a part.That is a third form of fal expectations,now bad on lf-misdi-agnosis.Its implications can be tested.
5.THE DETERMINANTS OF HAPPINESS
We estimate happiness functions in order to discover the determinants of happiness among rural–urban migrants.This enables us to test Hypothes1,2,and3.We proceed in stages:first,we estimate OLS estimates of the happiness score, both with a basic specification and with a full t of explana-tory variables;cond,we confine the sample to employed mi-grants,as this enables us to introduce a ries of work-related variables;and third,we estimate the same equations with the income variable instrumented.
Table2reports,for the full sample,the basic model and the extended model with the full t of explanatory variables avail-able.Eqns.(1)and(2)show the coefficients of the basic equa-tion and the full equation,respectively.The asterisks show levels of statistical significance.The coefficient on ln income per capita is significantly positive,and its values(averaging 0.20)indicate that a doubling of income rais the happiness score by about0.14points.Income is relevant,as predicted, but its effect
does not appear powerful by comparison with either the presumptions of economic theory or the effects of some other variables in the equations.However,expectations of income over the nextfive years enter powerfully and signif-icantly:tho expecting a‘‘big increa”have a higher happi-ness score than tho who expect income to remain the same, by0.32and0.30,respectively,and tho expecting a decrea have a lower score,byÀ0.40in both cas.
It appears that peoples’current happiness depends partly on their expectations of future income.This result derves inves-tigation becau of its implications for economic theory.It is consistent with the notion that people are efficient inter-tem-poral utility maximizers on the basis of their‘‘permanent in-come,”that is,people derive their happiness from their current consumption,and current consumption in turn is determined by their expectation of permanent income.How-ever,when Eqns.(1)and(2)of Table2were re-estimated with consumption per capita replacing income per capita,the coef-ficients on the expected income variables were barely changed (equations not shown).There is the further possibility that the variable denoting the expected change in income is endoge-nous,with naturally happy people being more optimistic about the future.Since we were unable tofind good instru-ments for expected income change,we adopted a different ap-proach.We estimated an equation with expected income change as the dependent variable,and city dummies(to reflect economic conditions)
and a proxy for natural disposition to-ward happiness as the explanatory variables.As our proxy we ud the individual residuals in the happiness function (bad on Table3,Eqn.(2))becau they are likely to be pos-itively correlated with unobrved personal disposition. Whether an ordered probit equation or a regression equation using the cardinal measure(2,1,0,À1)of the four expecta-tion categories was ud,the coefficient on the residual term was never significantly positive.There is no evidence for the endogeneity explanation.We are left with an explanation in terms of adaptation theory.The result is consistent with the findings of the psychological literature as interpreted by Eas-terlin(2001),that is,people evaluate their future income on the basis of their current aspirations,on the assumption that their future aspirations will not adjust to their future income. We e that men have lower happiness,ceteris paribus(their coefficients beingÀ0.28andÀ0.27in Eqns.(1)and(2),respec-tively),and that marriage has a negligible effect for women but a positive and significant effect(0.33and0.35,respectively)for men.Surprisingly,none of years of education,netfinancial as-ts,unemployment,and hours worked has a significant effect. However,being in good health rais happiness.
We expect migrants to adjust over time to urban life in var-ious ways.On the one hand,as they overcome initial difficul-ties and become more ttled,we expect their happiness to ri. On the other
hand,their reference groups might change,from the,poorer,village society to the,richer,urban society,and this fall in perceived comparative status might reduce happi-ness.The length of time spent in the urban area is introduced as an explanatory variable,and also its square so as to allow for non-linearity in the relationship.Both the variable and its square are significant,the former positively and the latter negatively,although only at the10%level in the full equation. The coefficients imply that the happiness score ris to a peak after14years and then declines in the basic equation,and that the peak is reached after12years in the full equation.How-ever,it is possible that there is lection bias on the duration
Table3.Happiness functions of employed rural–urban migrants:OLS estimation,lected variables
Mean or proportion(1)(2) Satisfaction with job 1.980.080024***0.073527* Index of discrimination 5.35À0.039273***À0.032196*** Permanent or long-term contract work0.050.1282940.133763 Temporary work0.24À0.0169730.007874 Canfind another job in two weeks0.11À0.10626À0.099676 Canfind another job in a month0.23À0.133214**À0.121339** Canfind another job in2months0.10À0.145655**À0.147820* Canfind another job in6months0.13À0.183292***À0.191704** Need more than6months tofind another job0.17À0.237879***À0.214012*** R20.1110.129 N17841715
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Notes:Dependent variable:Score of happiness bad on cardinal values assigned to qualitative asssments as follows:very happy=4;happy=3;so–so=2;not happy=1;and not at all happy=0.
The specifications of Eqns.(1)and(2)are identical to tho of Eqns.(1)and(2),respectively,of Table2,but the variables contained in Table2are not reported.
The omitted categories in the dummy variable analys reported are:lf-employed and canfind a job immediately.
Eqn.(2)has been clustered at city level for robust standard errors.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS?THE SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF RURAL–URBAN MIGRANTS IN CHINA117
