The Impact Of Urban Educational Public Services On The Migration Willingness Of Floating Population

Since the emergence of the first generation of "migrant workers" along with the process of urbanization,a large number of rural and urban floating population have left their hometowns and migrated to cities to work.However,under the restriction of household registration policy,the "localization" feature of public services makes the acquisition of urban public services often linked to their household registration status.Their needs and rights in social security,medical insurance,schooling for their children who migrate with them etc.are not fully guaranteed.Therefore,the choice of floating population in the face of staying in the city or returning is not only based on the balance of income between the inflow and outflow places,but also comprehensive consideration between the protection of their rights and the difficulty of settlement.Nowadays,the restrictions on household registration in small and medium-sized cities have been fully lifted,and in large cities they have also been gradually relaxed through several adjustments.After years of urban work life,if the floating population choose to migrate their hukou to the local area,they will be able to enjoy the urban public service resources equally,and the problem of rights protection brought about by the separation of households for a long time will also be easily solved.Based on this background,this paper starts with urban educational public service,studies the hukou migration willingness of floating population driven by the urban public service resources and phenomenon of public service "localization".The different levels of educational resources among cities,the linkage between household registration status and acquisition of educational resources,some personal factors and their influences on hukou migration willingness will also be discussed.The data used in this study consists of urban macro data and personal micro survey data.The 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey was used to obtain information on individuals’ hukou migration willingness.When measuring the urban educational resources,this paper uses principal component analysis through four proxy variables,calculates the index of urban educational public service,and finally matches the individual with urban data,then conducting an empirical analysis on the impact of urban educational resources on the hukou migration willingness of floating population.As for endogenous problems of the model and robustness of the conclusions,the methods of instrumental variable and the replacement of explained variables are used respectively.These test results show that the conclusion drawn from the basic regression model are reliable.Urban educational resources have indeed significantly improved the willingness of floating individual to migrate hukou from hometown to local area.In order to discuss the influence of land factors in floating population’s household registration place,the children’s migration with parents,and the effect of different school age stages on the hukou migration attraction of educational resources,this paper analyzes the heterogeneity of different floating population groups and finds that:(1)when level of urban educational public service is fixed,the contracted lands resources owned by the floating population in their household registration place will inhibit the hukou migration attraction of urban educational public services.The larger the contracted lands area,the higher the land economic benefits,and the more obvious the decline in hukou migration willingness.But,compared with contracted land,the ownership of homesteads and the area of homesteads in household registration places do not have a significant impact on the hukou migration attraction of urban educational public services;(2)if parents migrate with their children,compared with individuals whose children have not encountered difficulties in schooling in the inflow areas,individuals whose children have encountered difficulties in schooling have higher hukou migration willingness;at the same time,if children stayed in their hometown,compared with individuals who have not faced caring difficulties in the outflow areas,the existence of caring difficulties makes the individuals show lower hukou migration willingness with their higher tendency to return to hometown;(3)the decision of hukou migration varies among families with different school age children.In general,if the children are at the high school age,individuals show higher hukou migration willingness than the parents of primary and junior high school age children under the attraction of urban educational resources.In view of the importance of the high school stage for their children’s college entrance examination,it also reflects the parents’ hope that through hukou migration,their children can enjoy the city’s highquality educational resources on the same level as the local household registration population;(4)in addition to the heterogeneity analysis of above factors,this paper also constructs two indicators,the gap of educational resources and the degree of strictness of the college entrance examination policy in different places,to make further discussion of the educational resources inequality among cities and the linkage between household registration status and acquisition of educational resources.The result shows that the gap in educational resources between the inflow and outflow areas significantly increases the hukou migration willingness.Also,the stricter the college entrance examination policy in the province where the inflow city is located,the more obvious the promotion effect on hukou migration.Compared with families without school-age children,individuals with school-age children show higher hukou migration willingness.The gaps in educational resources and the analysis of the linkage between household registration status and acquisition of educational resources also provide a reasonable explanation for the role of local household registration advantages in promoting hukou migration out of education resources.This paper starts from the representative educational public service in the city,studies its influence on the floating population’s hukou migration willingness according to the connection between the acquisition of educational resources and household registration status,and analyzes the difference in the impact from the perspectives of land,children’s migration status and school-age stage,enriching research results in this field.At the same time,it considers and directly measures the linkage between educational public services and household registration status,as well as the gap in educational resources among cities,discussing their impact on the promotion of educational public services,which are supplements to the existing results from this research perspective.