1. Introduction
Advancing people-centered new urbanization is of great significance for promoting regional coordinated development and achieving socialist modernization. Since the reform and opening-up, many rural populations in China have poured into cities, forming a huge group of rural migrants. According to the “2022 Rural Migrants Monitoring Survey Report”, the total number of rural migrants in China in 2022 was 295 million, of whom 132 million lived in cities at the end of the year, accounting for about 45% of the total number of rural migrants. As the main force in the construction of new urbanization, the demographic dividend created by rural migrants has supported China’s economic growth in the past 40 years [
1]. However, the existence of the urban-rural dual household registration system has made it difficult for a considerable number of rural migrants to truly integrate into cities, and they are forced to carry out seasonal migration between urban and rural regions, which not only seriously restricts the improvement of urbanization quality but also may produce a new dual structure of urban and rural [
2] and even hinder the healthy development of China’s economy and society.
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that “Advancing people-centered new urbanization and accelerating citizenization of rural migrants”. Citizenization of rural migrants is not only a key measure to realize the new urbanization, but also a solid foundation to promote rural migrants to take root in the city and drive the healthy development of the economy and society. Therefore, how to improve the residence intentions of rural migrants and accelerate citizenization has become the focus of academic attention. The existing literature generally believes that the household registration system is the primary factor impacting the residence intentions of rural migrants [
3]. In the 1950s, to prevent excessive concentration of urban populations and ensure rational allocation of urban resources, China implemented a strict urban population management system. However, this system excluded the most vulnerable rural migrants in cities from the urban basic public service system [
4], further widening the income gap between urban and rural regions, and household registration discrimination occurred from time to time. Over the years, China has further promoted the reform of the household registration system, the policy of household registration migration has been fully relaxed, and the restrictions on urban settlement have been basically lifted. As a result, the negative impact of this system on residence intention of rural migrants has gradually weakened.
In addition to the household registration system, the existing literature has also examined the impact of demographic characteristics (e.g., age and level of education) [
5], family characteristics (e.g., family size and family migration) [
6], and economic factors (e.g., residential costs and income) [
7] on the residence intention of rural migrants. However, as China’s new urbanization officially enters the “second half”, the income and living standards of rural migrants are gradually improving, and the role of urban environmental factors in impacting the residence intentions of rural migrants is becoming more prominent. Relevant research shows that the higher the quality of the urban environment, the greater the attraction to rural migrants and the stronger the residence intention of rural migrants [
8]. As an important component of environmental factors [
9], air pollution may also have an important impact on the residence intentions of rural migrants.
In recent years, air pollution has become a global issue [
10], seriously endangering the physical and mental health of the labor force. According to the “World Air Quality Report” released by the Swiss air quality platform IQAir, only 7 out of 134 countries and regions meet the PM2.5 standard in the World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines. As one of the most significant environmental issues globally, air pollution has a profound impact on human health and productive activities. On the one hand, air pollution severely endangers people’s physical and mental health and shortens their life expectancy. WHO points out that 99% of the global population breathes unhealthy air. Air pollution causes approximately 7 million premature deaths each year and leads to health damage for millions of people. Among them, the highest proportion of premature deaths due to air pollution occurs in low- and middle-income countries, accounting for 91%. Data from the WHO show that air pollutants inhaled by people can lead to damage to the lungs, heart, and brain, and increase the probability of cancer, stroke, and heart and brain diseases. On the other hand, air pollution can reduce people’s labor time and productivity. Severe air pollution causes people to face higher health costs when they go out to work [
11] and increases their anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions, resulting in self-selection behaviors such as reducing labor supply time or “not working hard” to avoid the health shocks caused by air pollution.
So, how does air pollution impact the residence intentions of rural migrants? Unfortunately, the academic community has paid relatively little attention to this issue. Although some research has shown that air pollution can reduce the residence intentions of migrants [
12], due to the particularity of household registration and the behavior of rural migrants, the existing research conclusions on the impact of air pollution on the residence intention of migrants may not be extrapolated to rural migrants. In fact, for rural migrants, who make up more than 70% of total migrants, their health literacy is relatively low and their health awareness is generally poor [
13], making them more vulnerable to the negative impact of air pollution. Therefore, how to improve the living environment of cities and enhance the residence intentions of rural migrants has become an important issue worth exploring. In summary, using data from the China Migrant Dynamic Survey project and urban statistics, this article takes rural migrants as the research object and systematically examines the impact of air pollution on the residence intentions of rural migrants.
The possible marginal contributions of this article are as follows. Firstly, this article promotes the discussion of air pollution in the field of population migration research. The existing literature mainly takes migrants as the research object and examines the impact of air pollution on the residence intentions of migrants [
14]. This article mainly focuses on the group of rural migrants and explores how air pollution impacts the residence intentions of rural migrants, which not only enriches the relevant research on the citizenization of rural migrants but also strengthens the cognition of the causes of population migration. Secondly, this article reveals the internal mechanisms of air pollution impacting the residence intentions of rural migrants. Different from the research paradigm of air pollution–health–residence intention [
15], this article finds that strong social networks and deep social integration can alleviate the adverse impact of air pollution on the residence intention of rural migrants, helping to deepen the understanding of the mechanism by which air pollution impacts the residence intention of rural migrants. Thirdly, based on differences in the characteristics of cities and rural migrants, this article analyzes the heterogeneity of urban geographical location, precipitation, environmental regulation, as well as the age, flow domain, and human capital levels of rural migrants, which provides references for cities to accelerate the process of citizenization of rural migrants through environmental governance.
Figure 1 shows the research path of this article. Based on
Figure 1, the remaining sections of this article are organized as follows:
Section 2 and
Section 3 provide the literature review and theoretical analysis,
Section 4 introduces data processing and methodology,
Section 5 discusses empirical results, and
Section 6 summarizes the research conclusions and proposes policy suggestions.
2. Literature Review
From the existing literature, there is relatively little research examining the relationship between air pollution and residence intention, but the impact of air pollution can be indirectly explored from the perspective of population mobility. After the 19th century, extensive industrialization development and further acceleration of urbanization in industrially developed countries directly led to the concentrated outbreak of air pollution. The typical events include the 1930 Mas Valley smog event in Belgium, the 1943 Los Angeles photochemical smog event in the United States, and the 1952 London smog event in the United Kingdom. As a result, environmental factors such as air pollution began to gradually become important factors impacting population mobility. Based on the push-pull theory, Wolpert (1966) [
16] proposed a pressure threshold model to research the environmental factors that impact migration decisions and believed that harmful environmental factors would increase people’s psychological pressure, thereby impacting migration behavior. Based on Wolpert (1966), Speare (1974) [
17] constructed a pressure threshold-residential mobility model, which further emphasized the important role of environmental factors such as air pollution in migration decisions. Kahn (2000) [
18] used ozone data from the suburbs of Los Angeles from 1980 to 1994 to show that good air quality can significantly stimulate people’s migration tendencies, thereby promoting significant population growth. Similarly, Zhang and Guldmann (2010) [
19] surveyed urban population changes in the Cincinnati metropolitan region from 1980 to 2000. Their research indicated that air quality is a determining factor in household location choices; the better the air quality in the region, the stronger the intention of people to migrate there.
In addition to research focused on the United States, research on the impact of air pollution on population mobility has also extended to other countries. Vuong et al. (2022) explored the impacting factors of urban residents’ migration based on air pollution data from Hanoi, Vietnam. The results showed that residents’ satisfaction with air quality is significantly negatively correlated with their intention to migrate to other cities [
20]. Germani et al. (2023) conducted an empirical test using air pollution emission data from Italian provinces and found that air pollution negatively impacts the net migration rate of the population. This indicates that air pollution is an important factor causing population migration [
21]. With the increasingly serious issue of air pollution, Chinese scholars have also gradually focused on how air pollution impacts population mobility. Relevant research is mainly carried out at the macro-urban level and the micro-individual level. At the macro-urban level, Cao et al. [
22] found that air pollution can negatively impact the net migration rate of the urban population by using the urban panel data of 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. At the same time, this impact is becoming more and more obvious with the development of the social economy. At the micro-individual level, based on the 2013 China General Social Survey data, Zhang (2021) [
23] indicated that air pollution increased the probability of labor force migration. This conclusion was also confirmed by Guo et al. (2022) [
24]. Their results showed that if PM2.5 in the city increased by one unit, the probability of labor migration would increase by 1%.
In terms of the impact mechanism of air pollution on population mobility, most research has shown that the most direct impact mechanism is the damage to the health of the labor force. WHO announced ten major threats to global health in 2019, among which air pollution was considered the greatest health threat. Air pollution can directly impact the lungs and heart, leading to a significant increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, respiratory infections, lung infections, and other diseases [
15]. In addition, air pollution can also impact sleep quality, which may lead to sleep disruption in severe cases. The research of Heyes and Zhu (2019) [
25] showed that for every 1% increase in air pollution, the probability of insomnia will increase by 11.6%. Zanobetti et al. (2010) [
26] used PM10 data from seven cities in the United States and found air pollution is significantly positively correlated with sleep apnea. With the deepening of research, scholars have found that the damage of air pollution to labor force health not only stays at the physiological level but also impacts the psychological level of the labor force. Relevant research confirms that air pollution reduces the life satisfaction of the labor force and increases their perception of mental health risks [
27]. The decrease in life satisfaction and the perception of risk are likely to cause various chronic mental illnesses among labor force [
28], and even elevate the risk of suicide, thereby increasing the probability of labor force migration.
The above literature mainly examined the adverse impact of air pollution on population mobility or labor force migration behavior. However, population mobility typically refers to short-term spatial changes, while residence intention, especially long-term residence intention, reflects whether people are willing to live permanently or semi-permanently in the destination. Compared with short-term mobility, the factors considered by people when choosing long-term settlements are more complex. In recent years, some scholars have attempted to examine the relationship between air pollution and residence intention. Liu and Yu (2020) [
12] conducted an empirical test using the data from the 2016 China Labor Dynamics Survey. The results showed that air pollution significantly inhibited the residence intentions of migrants, and the elderly and less educated migrants were more sensitive to air pollution. Xu et al. (2022) [
14] pointed out that air pollution reduced the job and life satisfaction of migrants, thereby exerting an adverse impact on residence intention.
Overall, although the existing literature has indicated that air pollution can impact migration decisions in the labor force and has also expanded the discussion on the consequences of air pollution, there are still the following shortcomings. Firstly, most existing research is based on the assumption of labor force homogeneity. The research object is only for migrants, and little research has explored how air pollution impacts the residence intentions of rural migrants. Secondly, the impact mechanism mostly focuses on the impact of labor force health and fails to clarify the specific complex mechanism of air pollution impacting the residence intentions of rural migrants from the perspective of social capital. This article focuses on the current research gap, takes rural migrants as the research object, and examines the potential impact of air pollution on the residence intentions of rural migrants, as well as the moderating effects of social networks and social integration. On the one hand, this article can compensate for the shortcomings of the existing literature and enrich the relevant research on the citizenization of rural migrants. On the other hand, this article provides practical significance for the continuous improvement of urban air quality and the treatment of the negative effects of air pollution.
6. Conclusions and Suggestions
In recent years, the reasons for the migration decisions of rural migrants have changed significantly. The household registration system and economic factors are no longer the only driving forces behind their migration decisions. The role of urban environmental factors in migration decisions is beginning to be highlighted. Therefore, in the context of increasing environmental awareness among rural migrants, exploring how air quality impacts their residence intention is of significant importance for accelerating citizenization of rural migrants and advancing people-centered new urbanization. Using data from the 2017 China Migrant Dynamic Survey project and urban statistics, this article examines the impact of air pollution on the residence intentions of rural migrants. The conclusions are as follows: Firstly, air pollution reduces the residence intentions of rural migrants. For every one-unit increase in air pollution, residence intention of rural migrants will reduce by 1.51%. Secondly, mechanism analysis shows that social networks and social integration have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between air pollution and the residence intentions of rural migrants; namely, the stronger social networks or the deeper the degree of social integration, the weaker the negative impact of air pollution on the residence intention of rural migrants. Thirdly, heterogeneity analysis finds that air pollution mainly reduces residence intention of rural migrants in cities north of the Qinling Mountains-Huaihe River, cities with low precipitation, and cities with weak environmental regulations. At the same time, compared with high human capital levels, inter-provincial flow, and the new generation of rural migrants, air pollution has a more significant negative impact on the residence intention of low human capital levels, intra-provincial flow, and the older generation of rural migrants. Based on the above conclusions, this article proposes the following suggestions.
- (1)
The relevant subjects must adhere to the new development philosophy and continuously improve air quality. Local governments need to understand that air pollution not only damages the health of rural migrants but also runs counter to accelerating the process of new urbanization. Therefore, local governments should abandon the extensive economic development model at the expense of the environment and strive to achieve an effective balance between economic development and environmental protection. Firstly, local governments should improve environmental protection laws and regulations, such as standardizing carbon emissions trading and restricting the exploration of ecologically sensitive areas, to control air pollution comprehensively. In addition, local governments should strengthen the construction of environmental management institutions, increase supervision and penalties for heavily polluting enterprises, and enhance the implementation capacity of environmental protection policies. Secondly, local governments need to adopt production restriction measures for high-energy consumption and high-pollution industries at the policy level, support and guide the vigorous development of green and low-carbon industries such as new energy and energy conservation and emission reduction industries, and build bridges for economic development and environmental protection. Thirdly, local governments should strengthen the publicity of environmental protection, broaden the publicity channels of environmental protection, utilize television, newspapers, social media, and other platforms to popularize environmental protection knowledge and enhance public awareness of environmental protection.
- (2)
Enterprises should face up to the negative impact of air pollution on rural migrants and accelerate the green-oriented transition. Firstly, enterprises should fulfill their primary responsibility for environmental protection, vigorously support the implementation of environmental policies, and actively participate in the pilot construction of national carbon emissions trading. Secondly, enterprises should integrate the concept of green and sustainable development throughout their production processes, adopt clean production methods, use clean energy, and improve energy efficiency, thereby reducing air pollutant emissions and improving the working environment for rural migrants. Thirdly, enterprises should leverage digital technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to drive green innovation, further strengthen the adjustment and optimization of their energy structure, and increase their green and low-carbon production levels. Rural migrants need to raise their environmental awareness, actively participate in environmental protection actions, and try to choose low-carbon lifestyles such as green travel and garbage sorting to reduce energy waste and the use of pollution sources. At the same time, rural migrants should practice the concept of green consumption and give preference to green products, thereby contributing their efforts to the continuous improvement of air quality.
- (3)
Since the inhibitory effect of air pollution on the residence intentions of rural migrants is more significant in cities north of the Qinling Mountains-Huaihe River, cities with low precipitation, and cities with weak environmental regulations, cities should implement differentiated environmental governance policies and carry out air pollution control actions according to local conditions. Cities north of the Qinling Mountains-Huaihe River should reduce coal burning for heating and increase the proportion of clean energy for heating. At the same time, it is necessary to gradually improve the flexible heating mechanism in winter and adjust the heating time according to the weather conditions to reduce the waste of funds and energy and lower the emission of polluting gases. Cities with low precipitation should accelerate ecological civilization construction and improve the air purification capacity by afforestation and increasing green space. In addition, these regions should strengthen dust control on major transport roads and pay attention to dust management at construction sites, thereby achieving full coverage of dust area supervision. Cities with weak environmental regulation should strengthen air quality monitoring and control and guide enterprises to adopt environmental protection measures to reduce pollutant emissions. In contrast, cities with strong environmental regulation should adopt appropriate regulatory measures based on local development conditions to avoid adverse impacts on production activities caused by a “one-size-fits-all” approach. In addition, rural migrants who are easily impacted by air pollution, especially those with low human capital levels, should actively participate in employment skills training to enhance their human capital levels.
- (4)
The results of this article indicate that strong social networks and deep social integration can alleviate the negative impact of air pollution on the residence intentions of rural migrants. On the one hand, local governments should broaden the social participation channels of rural migrants, encourage rural migrants to join labor unions or other social organizations, and deepen the connection between rural migrants and other urban groups, thereby enhancing the sense of value and belonging of rural migrants in urban life. On the other hand, local governments need to continue deepening the reform of the household registration system, accelerating the development of urban-rural integration, establishing a comprehensive social security system, and achieving the equalization of basic public services. This will allow rural migrants to share the fruits of urban development and promote their genuine integration into urban life.
This article examines the impact of air pollution on the residence intentions of rural migrants. While it has achieved certain results in both theoretical and practical aspects, there are still some limitations. On the one hand, due to the accuracy and availability of data, this article only uses cross-sectional data for empirical analysis and cannot observe the changing trend of individual behavior. Therefore, in future research, it is necessary to find traceable panel data to expand the time range and further verify the conclusions of this article. On the other hand, although different from the existing research, this article finds that social networks and social integration have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between air pollution and residence intention of rural migrants, other potential impacting mechanisms may still exist. Therefore, future research should focus on exploring other mechanisms of air pollution impacting the residence intentions of rural migrants to enrich and improve the research framework on air pollution impacting the residence intentions of rural migrants. This will provide new ideas for cities to sustainably deal with air pollution and enhance the residence intentions of rural migrants.