Rural Decline And Population Migration In Poor Mountainous Areas

With the acceleration of urbanization,a series of problems have emerged in rural China: large migration of rural laborers,aging population,many left-behind children,vacant houses,extensive land use,weak public services and deteriorating living conditions.Moreover,from 1990 to 2012,the number of administrative villages in rural China dropped by 162,000;from 2000 to 2012,the number of natural villages in China dropped by 920,000.Undoubtedly,the decline of rural areas has become an inevitable social and economic phenomenon in the context of rapid urbanization in China.For China's decline in rural areas,whether letting it decline,or take measures to revitalize,we need to be in-depth study of rural decline.Population migration is an important reason for rural decline.Moreover,population migration has complex features.Therefore,it is necessary to deeply analyze the causes of population migration in the mountainous declining village and explore how to rejuvenate the declining village from the perspective of population migration through typical case studies.Chongqing is a microcosm of China's basic national conditions.It is characterized by its large rural areas,big cities,small-scale agriculture and large industries.It has a typical urban-rural dual structure with a large gap between urban and rural areas and an unbalanced regional development.Since 1997,Chongqing has been under the central government,the overall economic development in Chongqing has been in a good state with an ever-increasing level of urbanization.However,Chongqing Municipality's state-level poverty-stricken county-Youyang County,due to the geographical constraints and the implementation of the strategy of opening up and reform of the coastal areas,developing the western region and the Chongqing's economic development,led to a massive outflow of labor,which largely caused the decline of some villages(settlements)in the county.Based on this,taking the "rural decline and population migration in poor mountainous areas" as an title and taking typical townships in Youyang County of Chongqing Municipality as the research object,this paper constructs the index system to identify the declining communities,analyze the characteristics and development plan of the declining communities and explores the characteristics and motivation of population migration in the declining communities,aimed at to make policy suggestions for villages revitalization in mountainous areas from the perspective of mitigating population migration.The results were as follows:(1)Identification and characteristics of declining communities.Based on the common characteristics of rural decline,this paper chooses the following indicators to construct the rural decline index system: the proportion of out-going workers,the proportion of permanent residents,the proportion of abandoned land,the distance to the nearest school,the distance to the nearest clinic/hospital,the proportion of fixed broadband users,the number of trash dump sites,the proportion of building indoor toilets.Based on rural decline index system,we use Two Step Cluster to identify declining communities.A total of 32 declining communities and 26 non-declining communities were identified.In declining communities,majority of houses are idle,the land use is extensive,public infrastructure is lagging behind and the quality of living environment is low.Furthermore,declining communities have poor natural environment,low level of economic development and poor social and cultural environment.Due to few featured resources,declining communities are not clear about its future development orientation.Most declining communities still adhere to development traditional agriculture and animal husbandry.Some declining communities have plans to improve their infrastructure.Only a few declining communities have plans to develop leisure agriculture sightseeing tourism.Very few declining communities hope to relocate to a convenient settlement,in order to facilitate their children's schooling.(2)Characteristics of population migration in declining communities and utility analysis of migration.Ingoing communities are close to traffic trunk road and their elevation is low.And as the level of economic development declines,migration shows the regularities of “migration in the same village”.After migration,farmer households' agricultural incomes decreased and their contact with previous neighborhoods also declined.However,on the whole,the utility of living space has been greatly improved: farmer households have made obvious economic,social and ecological benefits in their new settlements.(3)Population migration mechanism in declining communities.From a macro perspective,inconvenience of transportation and living,poor natural conditions,fewer employment opportunities,poor farming conditions and low quality of living environment in rural areas are the pushing force of population migration.Good education resources,convenient transportation,more employment opportunities,high quality of living environment,easily to marry a wife in towns and its surrounding areas are the pulling force of population migration.From the microcosmic level,the smaller the dependency ratio is,the smaller the per capita contractual land area is,the younger the head of household is,the higher the proportion of non-agricultural income is and the worse the road accessibility is,the greater the possibility of migration is.