Population Research, founded in 1977, aims to provide forum for sharing new research achievements, new data and new analytic methods. The goal of the journal is to provide theoretical basis for government policy making, contribute to the solving of Chinese population issues, and render service for the scientific development of population and family planning.
Editor-in-Chief Zhai Zhenwu Associate Editor-in-Chief Chen Wei Yao Yuan
Using China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) of 2010, 2012 and 2014, this paper explores the impact of retirement on the Chinese elderly’s physical and mental health based on the mandated retirement age policy within a framework of regression discontinuity (RD).The mechanism of the impact of retirement on health is further tested. The results show that the impact of retirement on the health of males is not significant, while retirement has a significant positive influence on females’ self-reported health and mental health, the mechanism of which is that retirement significantly increases female physical exercise per week. Although retirement increases male physical exercise per week in a similar manner, it also raises the probability of overweight for males, which is likely to offset the effect of exercise to a certain extent. Chinese government is considering implementing policies for gradually postponing the retirement age of employees. The results of this paper indicate that postponing retirement should not be made at the expense of the elderly’s health, and China needs to push forward the “healthy aging” strategy.
Children’s migration, as the central part of family migration, is subject to the availability of public resources in cities. Restricted by household registration system, urban public resources and services remain to be the barrier to various degrees of the accessibility of children of migrant population. Therefore, exploring the effects of the urban public resources, especially education and medical resources, on the decisions about rural children’s migration is of much significance to the understanding of the process of family migration for migrant population in China and policy-based demands. This paper matches relevant data about medical and educational resources in cities nationwide for the year 2014 on the basis of individual data from national dynamic monitoring survey of migrant population directed by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China in the same year, and builds the models of contributing factors to the migration of rural children. The results show that the quantity and accessibility of urban public resources have significant influences on the decisions about rural children’s migration. For children in different age groups, migration behaviors rely on different types of public resources. The restrictions of household registration system remarkably reduce the driving force of urban public resources on rural children’s migration.
This paper analyzes the employment structure of rural migrant workers in China and its trend between 2007 and 2013 using data from CHIP 2007 and CHIP 2013. According to relevant study, first, in terms of job availability mode for employed rural migrant workers in 2013, those relying on “strong connections” reported a proportion of 50.82%, 13.8 percentage points lower than that in 2007. As to investment and loan for self-employed workers, 90% made investment and 30% loan, and private loan represented a main form, which, however, declined by 20.53 percentage points from 2007. Second, in terms of the structures of employment status, occupation, industry, and type of employer, in 2013, the proportion of self-employed workers was close to 30%, an increase of 7.25 percentage points over 2007. Major occupations for rural migrant workers involved commercial service, self-employment and production and transportation, industries mainly wholesale and retail, manufacturing and repair services for neighborhood, and employers mainly individual and private enterprises. As to the structure of employment income, the proportion of rural migrant workers with an annual income at and over CNY 30,000 increased markedly by 42.65 percentage points.
The past two decades have witnessed substantial growth in the elderly population living in empty-nest families in China, with lengthening years they spent in empty-nest status. However, studies of the empty-nest life expectancy of the elderly in China are rare. Using data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) from 2011 to 2013 and multi-state life table method, this study produces estimates of the life expectancy of older people aged over 60 and their empty-nest life expectancy, and examines the differentials according to gender, residence and educational level, both population-based and state-based. The results show that, the elderly in China spend over a half of their remaining life in empty-nest status; the female elderly and the elderly in rural areas have higher empty-nest life expectancy than their counterparts respectively; and the higher the level of education of the elderly is, the longer their empty-nest life expectancy is. Initial living arrangements of the elderly have major impact on their empty-nest life expectancy. These results apparently have important policy implications.
Based on the 2000 and 2010 census data of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan region, this paper uses the ESDA method to analyze the spatial pattern of urbanization rates as well as its changes at county level. By applying Spatial Error Model and GWR method, both global and local driving forces of urbanization are investigated in this region. The main results are as follows: (1) The urbanization rate of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan region at county level manifests a significant pattern of spatial aggregation which is gradually strengthened. (2) The increase of urbanization rate shows a pattern of convergence, and areas where the urbanization rate is high have positive impact on the nearby areas where the urbanization rate is low. (3) For areas where the urbanization rate is increased, the distribution of high value of rural contribution share is similar to that of areas which are in low urbanization rate. (4) Economic level, industrial structure, medical and education level, and terrain condition have significant effects on the urbanization level of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan region. Each driving force has a unique distribution of incidence pattern for different areas.
Using the spatial OD model, this study analyzes the migration flows among 31 provinces in China by exploring geographical effects, driving mechanism, and gender differences based on the inter-provincial migration data of the 6th census. Inter-provincial migration exhibits significant spatial dependence, in which the origin-destination separate spatial autocorrelation promotes migration, whereas the origin-destination joint spatial autocorrelation hinders migration. In general, the “push” from origin is weaker than the “pull” from destination in Chinese inter-provincial migration. There are significant gender differences in the driving mechanism. Impact of driving factors on female migration is stronger than that for male migration. Unemployment risk and employment discrimination are more evident in female migration. Males are more strongly influenced by spatial dependence than females in the choice of migration destination, which could be explained by the gender differences of endowment and social environment.
Based on the data of dynamic monitoring survey of floating population collected by the National Health and Family Planning Commission in 2015, this paper applies Logistic regression model to analyze long-term residence tendency of migrants in cities. The results show that long-term residence tendency of migrants is influenced by their demographic, human capital, and economic characteristics, through which this migrant group has demonstrated a new feature of differentiation. Improvement of education enhances individual’s long-term residence tendency. With junior college education as the dividing point, the higher educated migrants present a stronger tendency of residence. The increase of income level has a significantly effect on the residential preference of the entire group. With income of CNY 6000 as the dividing point, the high-income group of migrants has a stronger long-term residence tendency than the low-income group. When the housing expenditure is added into the model, the increased housing expenditure elevates migrant residential preference. However, it also has a negative effect on the residential preference of the high-income group.
