A Study On The Integration Of The Rural-urban Immigrant Families

Inasmuch as the thirty years of Reform and Opening up, rural-urban migration activities of China’s rural labour force is not merely a kind of economic behaviour. An increasing number of rural-urban immigrants are from "flowing" to "settling down", from the single-handed to all families’ going-out, this has become a significant sign of the rural-urban immigration and the shift of China’s urbanisation. However, urbanisation not only means that a large number of rural labour force flowing into the city,more significantly,the immigrations live in the city can achieve stable employment and residence,achieve transition of identity and integration. Only when the immigrations’ awareness of the sense of self-identity raises,getting rid of the lives of migrating,in general,integrated into the urban lives harmoniously,that is the time the quality of China’s urbanisation truly improved.The integration of rural-urban immigrant families is inevitable in the way of China completes the urbanisation,it has become a significant issue the society has to solve in the current and the future.Through combining various sampling methods, likewise, based on distinct stages, the study selected18communities among9streets in three cities—Guangzhou, Changsha and Liuzhou.In the selected communities,900migrational families and442individual immigrants were given a face to face interview questionnaires (parts of them were given an in-depth interviews).This study uses the quantitive analysis as the main method to investigate assisted by qualitative analysis occasionally.Based on the analysis of the general situations, the level of the integration of the rural-urban immigrant families, the factors of social solidarity, the motivation of migration and the integration of the rural-urban immigrant families are specifically considered, it demonstrates the general pattern and characteristic of the integration of the rural-urban immigrant families. It is found that:Firstly, comparing to the individual immigrant, the integration level of family immigrants is relatively high. In consideration of that, to study the urbanisation of rural-urban immigrants, it is important to notice the condition and type of the main body of the immigrants,as a prominent variate, it will demonstrate the objective and valid state specifically and scientifically, reducing the emergence of the unspecific and abstract conclusion.Secondly,there are some discrepancies of the integration level in economic,social cultural and psychological domains.At this point,the integration level in economic domain ranking the first place,following the social cultural domain,lastly in psychological domains.There are some imbalance of the level of integration in distinct dimensions,yet connected to and promote each others.Hence to study the states of the integration of the rural-urban immigrants’ families,every specific parts of the states should be considered.It also will unveil the objective and valid state specifically and scientifically,preventing the unspecific and abstract deductions on weather the level of integration is high or low.Thirdly, the study of the structural factors indicates that the relevance between the social security,the residence registration system and the level of the integration of the rural-urban immigrants’ families is low,while the relevance,involving the farmland per capita, territory revenue,urban residence assurance and the cost of housing consumption, is high. Specifically, the rise of per-person farmland and the benefits from territory contributes to the slump of the level of the integration of the rural-urban immigrant families,the increase of the cost of housing in urban areas and more reliable social security improve the integration of the rural-urban immigrant families.Fourthly, considering the subjective factors which probably influence the level of the integration of the families of the rural-urban immigrants, the inclination and the modes of migration’play a pivotal role in influencing the level of integration.Specifically specking, the more intenser inclination of migration contributes to the more extensive interaction,the more harmonious correspondence in thought involves urban lives and the higher the level of integration.There are some. periodical discrepancies in accordance with the levels of integration in distinct periods,while there also exist some regional distinctions in separated areas. Specifically,the immigrants live in the urban longer who have higher level of integration of the rural-urban immigration families, the level of integration of the migration families, those just migrated within one province,outbalances that of the individuals who migrated cross distinct provinces. Likewise,the level of that of the immigrants living in Changsha and Liuzhou generally higher than those who live in Guangzhou.Based on the findings above, the study suggests that, on how to enhance the quality of urban integration and urbanization, the nearby employment and stable residence are important.The study also attempts to discuss and respond to some foreign theories on the immigration,and try to catch up with some research hypothesis of studying the integration of the rural-urban immigrants families,likewise explains the limitation in this dissertation.