Reference System Substitution,Multidimensional Relative Poverty,and The Return Of Migrant Workers

According to the 2022 Migrant Worker Monitoring Survey Report,in 2022,the total number of migrant workers in China has increased by 3.11 million or 1.1% compared to last year.The group of migrant workers is large and increasing.However,the Report also shows that the number of local migrant workers will increase by 2.93 million or 2.4% in2022 compared with the previous year,accounting for 94% of the new migrant workers,and the trend of migrant workers returning to their hometowns may have already appeared.Although there is a large influx of rural migrant population into cities,the problem of reverse migration flow of rural migrant population and difficulty in citizenship of migrant workers has become more and more obvious,probably due to the restrictions of the household registration system and the relative deprivation faced in various aspects in cities.In view of this,this thesis will build a multidimensional relative poverty system based on the data of the 2017 national survey on the dynamic monitoring of the migrant population,with urban residents as a new reference system,and select four dimensions of health care,social security,employment,and education,and use a binary Logit regression model to empirically test the impact of multidimensional relative poverty on migrant workers’ willingness to return to their hometowns and identify the mechanisms of the role of identity and social interaction on it We further analyzed the effects of multidimensional relative poverty on different types of migrant workers’ willingness to return to their hometowns.The study finds that relative poverty is higher for the health care and social security dimensions,and lower for the employment and education dimensions;multidimensional relative poverty significantly promotes migrant workers’ willingness to return to their hometowns;social security and health care dimensions promote migrant workers’ willingness to return to their hometowns,but neither employment nor education dimensions promote migrant workers’ willingness to return to their hometowns;multidimensional relative poverty significantly promotes migrant workers’ willingness to return to their hometowns by suppressing their identity and social interaction.Multidimensional relative poverty significantly promotes the return of migrant workers with residence permits but inhibits the return of migrant workers without residence permits,and significantly promotes the return of migrant workers with no contracted land and higher education level than those with intra-provincial mobility,contracted land and lower education level.Based on the above findings,this thesis argues that by comprehensively assessing the intensity of multidimensional relative poverty of migrant workers in cities and alleviating the state of multidimensional relative poverty of migrant workers in cities,we can provide reference for improving the level of public service equalization of migrant workers in cities,accelerating the process of citizenship of migrant workers.