Abstract
By studying the county-level census data of 1990 and 2000, we analyzed the spatial and temporal changes in the floating population in China between 1990 and 2000. The results of the analysis revealed the following characteristics. First, the spatial distribution of the migrants (referred to as ‘floaters’ in this paper) became increasingly concentrated in the cities during the 1990s. Second, the number of floaters increased rapidly during this period, and the area in which the floaters settled expanded quickly into four population explosion belts: the coast, the Changjiang River Delta, the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway and national border belts. Third, the number of inter-province floaters increased rapidly and exceeded that of intra-province floaters in the 1990s. In addition, to obtain a quantitative relationship between the number of floaters and 10 socio-economic variables by using statistical methods and also to find the chiefly important pulling factors of the migration destination, the authors selected approximately 100 cities with the largest population of floaters. Consequently, we found that four factors—GDP, passenger trips per 10,000 persons, per capita GDP and foreign direct investment—could provide an explanation for 83.7% of the number of floaters in 2000. The GDP showed the highest correlation with the number of floaters, suggesting that a highly developed economy is the most important factor that attracts floaters. Furthermore, a fairly close relationship between the number of floaters and the GDP was also found in 2000 for all the counties.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bouvier Leon F, Shryrock Henry S, Henderson Harry W, 1977. International migration: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Population Bulletin, 32(4): 26.
Chan Kam-wing, Liu Ta, Yang Yun-yan, 1999. Hukou and non-hukou migration in China: comparisons and contrasts. International Journal of Population Geography, 5(6): 425–448.
Davin Delia, 1999. Internal Migration in Contemporary China. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Ishimura Hiroshi, 2004. A review of migration in China by Chinese Census 2000. Geographical Journal of Nara University, 10: 1–20. (in Japanese)
Ishikawa Yositaka, 1994. Measurement Geography of Migration. Tokyo: Koukin-shoin. (in Japanese)
Li Ling, 2002. Internal population migration in China since the economic reforms: A review. Population and Family Planning, (2): 35–44. (in Chinese)
Li Xiaojian, Qiao Jiajun, 2000. County-level economic disparities of China in the 1990s. Acta Geographica Sinica, 55(2): 136–145. (in Chinese)
Mallee Hein, 1996. In defence of migration: recent Chinese studies on rural population mobility. China Information, 10(3/4): 108–140.
Population Census Office and State Statistical Bureau, 1991. 10 percent sample of the 1990 census data. Beijing: China Statistics Press. (in Chinese)
Population Census Office and State Statistical Bureau, 2003a. County-level data of population census 2000. Beijing: China Statistics Press. (in Chinese)
Population Census Office and State Statistical Bureau, 2003b. Collections of national projects based on the fifth population census. Beijing: China Statistics Press. (in Chinese)
National Bureau of Statistics of China, 1991, 2001. China City Statistical Yearbook. Beijing: China Statistics Press. (in Chinese)
Wang Guixin, 1993. Relationship between inter-provincial migration and distance. Population and Economics, (2): 3–8. (in Chinese)
Wang Guixin, 1997. Population Distribution and Regional Economic Development in China: A New Approach of Population Distribution Economics. Shanghai: East China Normal University Publishing House. (in Chinese)
Wei Jinsheng, Sheng Lang, Tao Ying, 2002. Floating Population of China. Beijing: People’s Education Press. (in Chinese)
Zhu Chuangeng, Gu Chaolin, Ma Ronghua, 2001. The influential factors and spatial distribution of floating population in China. Acta Geographica Sinica, 56(5): 549–560. (in Chinese)
Zhu Chuangeng, Gu Chaolin, Zhang Wei, 2002. The quantitative analysis of influential factors of floating population in China. Population Journal, 2: 9–12. (in Chinese)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Foundation item: Under the auspices of the Domestic Research Fellowship of the Japan Foundation of Public Communication on Science and Technology (No. H-3)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, C., Otsubo, K., Wang, Q. et al. Spatial and temporal changes of floating population in China between 1990 and 2000. Chin. Geograph.Sc. 17, 99–109 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-007-0099-5
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-007-0099-5