A migrant laborer who works as a cleaner stands on the ledge of a high-rise building in the Pudong New Area, Shanghai.

The migration of rural workers to urban centers is raising new questions about a better way to integrate this group into the fabric of modern cities. Social integration is vital to the welfare of migrants and creating a sense of harmony in metropolitan areas.

At the same time, the process affects dynamic urban-rural migration patterns by encouraging migrants to adopt adaptive behavioral strategies. Social integration has a long-term and intergenerational influence on human migration, thus shaping urban-rural development and urbanization.

Generational circulation

The difficulties of localization lead to shortsighted expectations of migrants about employment and income in cities. This makes migrants to reevaluate the benefits of relocation and dampens their desire to do so.

The tendency among migrants to only evaluate costs and benefits in the short term means relocation is usually temporary, and the majority of migrants ultimately choose to leave cities. As a result, there is often reverse and cyclical migration.

If the relocation is temporary, it is hard for migrants to build social networks and accumulate resources. In other words, poor localization means that migrants are at a disadvantage in terms of social capital. The difficulties they face when resettling and developing in local cities have become more evident. Migrants are plagued by other institutional problems realting to household registration, education, medical care and housing. If they are not capable of resolving these problems, they have to live apart from their families or hold on to their rural land to avoid risks caused by relocation and living costs.

In fact, when migrants fail to integrate into urban institutions, they are forced to rely more on land and rural society so they can access resources like education, insurance and personal development that are only available in the places where they are registered. However, the situation further constrains them from making long-term plans. Therefore, short-term relocation from rural areas to cities not only demonstrates how migrants are unable to localize, but also speaks to the difficult choices they face.

During temporary relocation, migrants either work as laborers or start their own businesses, leaving their children and spouses in the countryside. If they face difficulties in employment and insurance in old age, they have no other choice but to go back to their hometowns. Their children, who previously stayed in rural areas, have to go to the city to earn money for the household, continuing the cycle.

In this generational cycle, the younger generation go out for work while their children stay and the elder return. Poor localization leads to an intergenerational migration cycle that differs from permanent relocation to the city. The barriers between rural and urban areas are solid, and the gap between the two is expanding, pushing the countryside into a development trap.

Labor shortage

On the other hand, incomplete localization of migrants can cause another development trap in which cities suffer from the lack of a stable migrant labor pool. This explains frequent labor shortages in cities and towns despite the large number of migrant workers in China.

Compared with theories based on an interpretation of the Lewis turning point, the development trap is more likely attributable to the failure of migrant workers to form a stable labor market that cities really need.

As a result, labor costs will rise in a distorted labor market. The capital increase is a form of institutional loss in the process of urban industrialization and urban-rural development, which is damaged by localization difficulties. From a shortsighted perspective, poor localization caused by unreliable social welfare system seems to help reduce public expenses of cities and is beneficial to the bottom line. In fact, the increased labor costs in the distorted labor market not only add to operational costs but also raise obstacles to urban development.

The transient nature of the migrant population complicates the process of transforming them into skilled workers.This shortage of skilled labor ultimately compromises the industrial upgrading of cities and towns. Also, enterprises can hardly make progress given this cycle because they cannot access a stable labor pool or invest in human resources. Therefore, the industrial structure remains mired in a low-profit model reliant on intensive labor, making enterprise operation more difficult.

In response, enterprises have to decrease employment scale which in turn further enhances risks of migrants in terms of living and developing. So migrants will shorten the length of their stay in cities. In addition, incomplete localization constrains migrant consumption because this group tends to emphasize savings. This phenomenon to some extent results in insufficient internal demand and overproduction in the process of urbanization.

From this perspective, the view that overproduction is the main source of these problems in the Chinese economy is not accurate. A better explanation lies in cities’ failure to integrate migrants and accommodate their lifestyles, producing insufficient effective demand. Therefore, incomplete localization shortens the time migrants spend in the city. At the same time, it exerts an accumulated and long-term influence on the development level of cities and towns by constraining industrial upgrading and social improvement.

In summary, in the process of urbanization, incomplete localization will change decision-making of a particular group of migrants and affect their behavior patterns in the long run, thus further impacting urban-rural development. In addition, intergenerational cycles caused by poor social integration are casuing a development trap in the countryside. The distorted labor market caused by poor localization hinders industrial transformation and upgrading, creating a development trap for cities. In order to pursue a higher standard of urbanization in China, a pattern effectively integrating urban-rural migration should be established.

Urban-rural coordination

It is evident that localization of migrants is a key issue in the process of urban-rural migration and urbanization. Urban-rural migration and development will both be improved through enhanced social integration. Only in this way can coordinated urban-rural institutions be built that tackle the development traps of rural and urban areas. Enhanced social integration can accelerate population migration, which helps agricultural departments improve labor productivity. It also ensures the sustained supply of labor to cities and increases overall supply and demand for economic development, meeting people’s expectations in terms of social benefits.

Sufficient localization grants migrants access to better opportunities for the self-development, higher incomes and more stable lives. It also enhances their sense of recognition and belonging in their adoptive homes. What’s more, complete localization stabilizes city life and expands consumption demand, leading to more investment in self-development and education of migrant children. In this way, urban-rural migration will increase social mobility and intergenerational cycle, which is an engine for city development.

In short, localization of migrants is the crucible of urbanization, offering a path toward breaking down the barriers that separate the institutions of the cities and the countryside. Internal social integration will be realized, providing an impetus for sustainable urban-rural development and urbanization.

The development of cities that are receiving a large influx of migrants requires effective localization in the process of relocation. Standard urbanization should be achieved by completing urban-rural migration in a valid way, creating incentives for future development. If the first phase of urbanization is a process of de-agriculturalization in which large numbers of people flow to the cities, the primary issue in the current situation lies in the mass scale of localization. Hence, social integration is closely related to the process and effectiveness of urbanization.

Ren Yuan is a professor from the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University.