The Effect of Migration on Rural-Urban Migrants’ Fertility in China: An Acculturation Perspective

Liyang Gao, Xi’an Jiaotong University
Zhongshan Yue, Xi’an Jiaotong University
Ming Wen, University of Utah
Shuzhuo Li, Xi'an Jiaotong University

Over the past few decades, China has been experiencing great demographic changes in fertility and internal migration. In this paper, we focus on the relationship between rural-urban migrants’ acculturation and their fertility behavior. The present study considers the acculturation of rural-urban migrants as a multidimensional and bicultural process. Based on a multidimensional and bidirectional framework of acculturation, using data from a Guangzhou survey of rural-urban migrants in 2015–2016 and the method of latent class analysis (LCA), four categories of acculturation of rural-urban migrants are identified, including two subtypes of integration and two subtypes of separation. Our findings show that acculturation plays a significant role in fertility behaviors of rural-urban migrants. In comparison to migrants in integration-potential separation group, migrants in the urban-oriented integration group are less likely to have two or more children, and individuals in marginalization-risk separation group are more likely to have a boy as their second child. Fertility behaviors of rural-urban migrants are simultaneously influenced by both urban and rural cultures. On one hand, urban culture helps weaken migrants’ son preferences. On the other hand, the maintenance of rural culture substantially increases migrants’ likelihood of having two or more children.

Keywords: Fertility, Internal Migration and Urbanization

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