Social Integration of Rural Migrants in Urban Wuhan

Abstract

Since the 1980s reform and openness in China, massive surplus rural laborers have migrated into cities and towns due to rapid economic development and gradually relaxed migration control, increasing from 30 million in 1990 to 200 million in 2006. This thesis uses sociological perspectives about migration to examine how well migrants have integrated into urban community and what impede their social integration. It is hoped that findings in this thesis will offer help to lead this human behavior in a positive direction.

The analysis presented here is based on data collected in a mixed-method study, conducted with 202 respondents in 3 areas of urban Wuhan during the summer of 2009. The data provide convincing evidence that rural migrants¿ occupation conversion has not led to their integration with urban residents after migration. The research findings suggest that though rural migrants have migrated and get employed in cities, they do not completely assimilate in terms of urban habitation and lifestyle, do not come to identify with urban society, and do not achieve a sense of urban belonging. Based on these findings, this study argues that they are merely semi-urbanized and inadequately integrated into urban social, institutional, and cultural systems. They are highly socially and spatially segregated, far from achieving socioeconomic parity due to both formal and informal barriers. Only through the development, implementation, and enforcement of a holistic, feasible, and results-oriented interregional-unified policy package will more rural migrants be able to settle and successfully integrate into urban settings, regardless of their status or background.