Stay Or Leave: A Study On The Migratory Intentions Of Floating Population In Shanghai And Suzhou, China

At present, China is witnessing a much larger amount of population floating than any time before in Chinese history, and it becomes the largest population flow in the world. Among all of the floating population now in the cities, who will leave and who will stay? And when to leave? The aim of this study is to answer these questions. It can help us to better understand the characteristics of the floating population and their needs in the city, so that it will be helpful for government's policy making. Based on the survey on floating population in Shanghai and Suzhou, the article firstly summarizes the characteristics of floating population's migratory intentions, then identifies the factors that affect these intentions, and finally evaluates the influence of household registration system upon their migratory intentions.This dissertation is consisted of seven chapters. Chapter one is the introduction of the background, objectives, research gap of the study. Chapter two offers a theoretical analysis and put forward assumption. Chapter three explains the research strategies, including research method, operationalization of variables, samples and so on. Chapter five is a descriptive analysis by crosstab method to summarize the characteristics of the floating population. Chapter six is the quantitative statistical analysis, which is to establish the multivariate logistic regression model to identify the factors that affect the floating population's migratory intentions. The last part is the conclusions and recommendations for future study.The main findings of this paper including: floating population who intends to reside permanently in the city's have some statistically significant differences with the others in age, sex, educational level, occupation, family type, duration of stay etc.; Economic factors don't have statistically significant effect on floating population's migratory intention, but social factors have; The household registration system have some impact on their migratory intentions.