Economic Considerations and Attitudes toward Migrant Workers

Large-scale rural-to-urban labor migration in China has drawn much of academic attention. Existing studies have documented a deep socioeconomic divide between urbanites and migrants. However, to date little research has been done to understand public attitudes toward migrant workers. Leveraging an original public opinion survey, I find that urbanites in general do not particularly welcome migrant workers. Moreover, when respondents are stimulated to think about economic consequences of migrant inflows, considerations of migrants' impact on local labor market and public finance are powerful shapers of urbanites' attitudes toward internal migration. These results illustrate that material considerations may not be prominent among the general population, but they are real and important in public opinion formulation toward migrants. This paper is among the first to study the determinants of public attitudes toward migrant workers in China. The findings have important implications for the ongoing reform of the household registration system and public goods provision in China.