Effect of hukou Accessibility on Migrants’ Long Term Settlement Intention in Destination
Kaxton Y.K. SIU
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study advances the body of knowledge by investigating migration hukou. So, is a study that draws attention to a topic of interest in the field of migration. I also recommend the work to the authors to correlate the activity related to measuring the effects. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2021.2010110
Author Response
Point 1: This study advances the body of knowledge by investigating migration hukou. So, is a study that draws attention to a topic of interest in the field of migration. I also recommend the work to the authors to correlate the activity related to measuring the effects.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2021.2010110
Response 1:
We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion and comment. Indeed, in the previous manuscript, we did not consider the impact of the household registration system on the life of migrant workers in the destination, such as consumption behaviour. In the updated version, we have further improved this aspect by referring to Tan et al. 's (2021) article in the introduction part based on your suggestion.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper addresses one of the most important issues about internal migration in China, the hukou accessibility of migrants in destination cities. Although this paper is important, it still has several issues to be clarified and improved before it can formally published:
- Dependent variable (the difficulty of obtaining a local hukou): I wonder why the response categories only involve “a bit difficult” and “very difficult”. There should be one more category “no difficulty “ to capture the response. Now the response categories are biased. However, when doing the robust check, three levels of difficulty to classify different regions and cities are introduced. This is very inconsistent.
- Income level: when measuring respondents’ income level, more justifications are needed why 2500, 5000, 8000 are used as different income groups. Especially for low income migrants, earning between 2500 and 5000 is very different. They might need to do a lot of overtime work or engage in second job. A diversity of skilled and unskilled workers also can fall within this group.
- The anecdotal explanation of male migrants are more likely to return hometown in the long-term needs to have more evidence to support. In recent research (e.g. Siu and Unger, 2020), it is found that female migrants are usually the ones in low income migrant families to accompany their children to return to hometown to let their children receive education in their hometown and to take care of them, and male migrants are the one to stay in destination cities to earn family income.
Siu, K., & Unger, J. (2020). Work and family life among migrant factory workers in China and Vietnam. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 50(3), 341-360.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: Dependent variable (the difficulty of obtaining a local hukou): I wonder why the response categories only involve “a bit difficult” and “very difficult”. There should be one more category “no difficulty “ to capture the response. Now the response categories are biased. However, when doing the robust check, three levels of difficulty to classify different regions and cities are introduced. This is very inconsistent.
Response 1:
We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion and comment. In the previous manuscript, we didn't include the "not difficult" group of migrant workers in the model because we believed that they had already fulfilled the hukou requirements so that there is no need to consider them for this research. However, thank you very much for your comment. Our previous strategy may indeed lead to a biased result. Therefore, we reintroduced the "not Difficult "group into the model and got more interesting results that the negative impact of hukou difficulty on migrant workers' residence intention is not linear, and only when the threshold in obtaining hukou is too high and difficult to achieve, migrant workers will choose to return hometown in the long term.
Point 2: Income level: when measuring respondents’ income level, more justifications are needed why 2500, 5000, 8000 are used as different income groups. Especially for low income migrants, earning between 2500 and 5000 is very different. They might need to do a lot of overtime work or engage in second job. A diversity of skilled and unskilled workers also can fall within this group.
Response 2:
In the previous manuscript, our wage groups classification was based on the minimum wage standards of most destinations, for example, the minimum wage in Beijing is 2,320 yuan per month. The purpose of this classification was to compare the difference in willingness to stay between migrant workers still struggling at the lowest income level and other income groups. However, after careful observation of our sample distribution and your advice. In the updated manuscript, we adjusted this variable again according to the income level of migrant workers (4,072 yuan per month in 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics) and the income distribution in the sample and divided it into 3500, 5000 and 8000. It proves that income level has little influence on migrant workers' willingness to stay. Secondly, due to the limitations of the data, we cannot know the income level of the respondents' household and cannot judge whether they need to work overtime or engage in second jobs for living. However, your suggestion does have great inspiration for our future research. Lastly, education background and occupation (Unemployed, General staff, Senior manager and Employer) are also taken into account in the control variables, which can reflect whether the respondents are skilled workers to a certain extent.
Point 3: The anecdotal explanation of male migrants is more likely to return hometown in the long-term needs to have more evidence to support. In recent research (e.g. Siu and Unger, 2020), it is found that female migrants are usually the ones in low income migrant families to accompany their children to return to hometown to let their children receive education in their hometown and to take care of them, and male migrants are the one to stay in destination cities to earn family income.
Response 3:
We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion and comment. Indeed, in the previous manuscript, we haven't delved into why male migrants are more likely to return. In the updated version, we have further improved this aspect by referring to Siu and Unger (2020) article analysis section based on your suggestion.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you very much for this opportunity to revise the manuscript titled "Effect of hukou accessibility on migrants’ long term settlement intention in destination" that was submitted to Sustainability (Section "Sustainable Transportation").
Despite that this topic is interesting and important I wish the authors had supplemented the paper with information about the gaps in the quality of schooling, pensions, and public health between urban and rural areas in China.
In this regard, I would recommend to the authors to supplement the article with the following sources:
1) Giraudo-Baujeu, G. (2021). Hukou, Discriminations, and Mobilities: Qi’s Interview. Sociology of Migration and Post-Western Theory, 226–230. doi:10.4000/books.enseditions.38807
2)Huang, B., & Zhu, Y. (2020). Higher Education Expansion, the Hukou System, and Returns to Education in China. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3542623
3) Liu, H., Rizzo, J.A. & Fang, H. Urban-rural disparities in child nutrition-related health outcomes in China: The role of hukou policy. BMC Public Health 15, 1159 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2517-4
It is also I think the Conclusion should be broadened.
This paper holds actual value to the readers on Sustainability.
I will be happy to review the revised manuscript.
Author Response
Point 1: Despite that this topic is interesting and important I wish the authors had supplemented the paper with information about the gaps in the quality of schooling, pensions, and public health between urban and rural areas in China.
Response 1:
We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion and comment. Indeed, in the previous manuscript, we did not make an in-depth analysis of the quality of public services between urban and rural areas in China in introduction section. In the updated version, we have further improved this aspect by referring Huang, B., & Zhu, Y. (2020) and Liu, H., Rizzo, J.A. & Fang, H.(2015) into our introduction and conclusion sections based on your suggestion.
Point 2: It is also I think the Conclusion should be broadened.
Thank you very much for your suggestions on the conclusion. In the updated manuscript, we further analysed the mechanism of the household registration system on migrant workers' willingness to stay based on the updated results and broaden our conclusion in two ways. First, we illustrate our theoretical contribution of the push-pull theory by demonstrating the existence of 'intervening obstacles' in Chinese internal migration. Secondly, we conducted a detailed analysis through the optimization of the model and found that the influence of the household registration system on stay intention was not linear but had a threshold value. Different from previous researches, we believe that after nearly 10 years of household registration (hukou) system reform, most cities have gradually achieved equal access to basic public services, and migrant workers can enjoy more public services than before, although not necessarily the same as the local. As a result, hukou in many cities is no longer the decisive factor in determining whether migrant workers will stay in the destination for a long time. However, although China's household registration system(hukou) reform has been improving, it still hinder migrants' residence intention to some extent, and has considerable potential to optimize.
In theory, the hukou system is different from the characteristics of the ‘intervening obstacles’ in the push-pull theorem. E.S.Lee believed that the ‘intervening obstacles’ will only hinder immigrants' residence intention. But our research finds that the hukou system does not affect their residence intention when it is not very difficult to settle down.
However, we also realize that this analysis may not go far enough. In future studies, we will further analyse the internal connection and mechanism between the two based on panel data or qualitative analysis.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper makes a significant contribution to the immigrant dispersion literature from the case-study of China. The authors need to relate their findings to the current literature and elaborate of the pull and push theories. Under the push and pull, access to the hukou system will be considered part of the pulling calculation among migrants. Perhaps the argument will be more robust if the authors compare in a quasi-experimental design the effects of those who settled in cities with those who did not. One important contribution is to use SES characteristics to attempt to find the differential rates among migrants but we do not know if they use these variables within the same or comparable groups.
Author Response
Point 1: The paper makes a significant contribution to the immigrant dispersion literature from the case-study of China. The authors need to relate their findings to the current literature and elaborate of the pull and push theories. Under the push and pull, access to the hukou system will be considered part of the pulling calculation among migrants.
Response 1:
We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion and comment. Indeed, in the previous manuscript, we haven't quite related our findings to the pull-push theories and current literatures. In the updated version, we have further improved this aspect through the revision of the conclusion part. Different from previous researches, we believe that after nearly 10 years of household registration (hukou) system reform, most cities have gradually achieved equal access to basic public services, and migrant workers can enjoy more public services than before, although not necessarily the same as the local. As a result, hukou in many cities is no longer the decisive factor in determining whether migrant workers will stay in the destination for a long time. However, although China's household registration system(hukou) reform has been improving, it still hinder migrants' residence intention to some extent, and has considerable potential to optimize.
In theory, the hukou system is different from the characteristics of the ‘intervening obstacles’ in the push-pull theorem. E.S.Lee believed that the ‘intervening obstacles’ will only hinder immigrants' residence intention. But our research finds that the hukou system does not affect their residence intention when it is not very difficult to settle down.
Point 2:
Perhaps the argument will be more robust if the authors compare in a quasi-experimental design the effects of those who settled in cities with those who did not. One important contribution is to use SES characteristics to attempt to find the differential rates among migrants, but we do not know if they use these variables within the same or comparable groups.
Response 2:
Thank you very much for your advice. However, due to data limitations, we can only know the prefecture-level city where the interviewees live, and cannot know whether they live in urban or rural areas. However, your opinion is very enlightening for our future research. Thank you again. Secondly, we did actually analyse whether the relationship between hukou difficulty and residence intention of migrants are various under SES characteristics (education, employment and city level) by introducing interaction terms, but the results found no significant difference, so we did not mention this issue in the article.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The revised manuscript has addressed my previous comments and now gets a more interesting results on the hukou threshold. The manuscript is now ready to be published.
Reviewer 4 Report
The revision have improved the paper substantially.
