Falling Into the Second-Generation Decline? Evidence From the Intergenerational Differences in Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

Xiangming Leng; Min Zhong; Junling Xu; Shenghua Xie

doi:10.1177/2158244020939539

Falling Into the Second-Generation Decline? Evidence From the Intergenerational Differences in Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

Leng, Xiangming; Zhong, Min; Xu, Junling; Xie, Shenghua 2020-07-08 00:00:00 Previous studies have not adequately articulated the intergenerational differences in social identity of rural–urban migrants in China. Using survey data from Wuhan, China, the study tests three hypotheses on intergenerational differences in rural– urban migrants’ social identity based on first-generation and new-generation migrants’ attitudes toward rural and urban society. Results suggest that first-generation migrants are more likely to view themselves as rural rather than urban citizens. However, new-generation migrants tend to regard themselves as neither peasants nor urban citizens, which means that their identity reconstruction is at a stalled status. The identity perplexity of new-generation migrants suggests that they may be in danger of falling into the second-generation decline because there is a mismatch between their aspirations and the practical situation of their identity integration. This article highlights that when analyzing rural–urban migrants’ social identity, it is very important to consider the role of generation and rural–urban migrants’ attitudes toward their background society. Furthermore, the study suggests that in a rural–urban dichotomized society without institutional and social support, rural– urban migrants’ identity integration will not be achieved. Therefore, the Chinese government needs to build an institutionally and socially inclusive society. Keywords rural–urban migrant, identity, intergenerational difference, second-generation decline, China barrier to their urban integration (Fan, 2007; Li, 2006; Introduction Solinger, 1999; Zhan, 2011). Rural–urban migrants in China refer to rural laborers who The origins of institutional and social discrimination work in cities but retain a rural hukou status (household reg- against rural–urban migrants could be largely ascribed to the istration). They are the principal part of internal migrants in hukou system. This system was created in the 1950s, and it China. In recent years, the social integration (urban integra- was first implemented in urban areas, and then extended to tion) of rural–urban migrants has been an interest topic of rural areas (K. W. Chan & Zhang, 1999; F.-L. Wang, 2005). It many researchers (Y. Chen & Wang, 2015; Frenkel & Yu, aimed not only to control and monitor rural to urban migration 2014; W. W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Wong et al., 2007; Yue but also served multiple state interests, such as maintaining et al., 2013). There are many reasons for this. First, the mag- “unequal exchange” between the agricultural and industrial nitude of rural–urban migrants is very large. The number of sectors to boost the development of industry and securing cross-township rural–urban migrants has reached nearly 169 social and political stability (K. W. Chan & Zhang, 1999). F.- million in 2015 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, L. Wang (2005) suggested that the hukou system has both 2016). Second, rural–urban migrants are a significant com- positive and negative effects on the Chinese society: on one ponent contributing toward the Chinese economy. It has been estimated that they have contributed about 16% of GDP growth in China over the past decades (“Migrant Workers Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China Contribute 16% GDP Growth,” 2006). More specifically, Corresponding Author: approximately 30% of GDP in Beijing and 31% of GDP in Shenghua Xie, College of Public Administration, Central China Normal Shanghai in 2007 were attributed to them (Chang et al., University, Luoyu Road No. 152, Hongshan District, Wuhan 430079, 2009). Third, rural–urban migrants have suffered institu- China. tional and social discrimination in urban areas, which is a big Email: shenghua.xie@outlook.com Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open hand, it has helped the rapid economic development and polit- personal relationships which might influence the urban inte- ical order; on the other hand, it also has reinforced social strati- gration of rural–urban migrants (Y. Chen & Wang, 2015; Li, fication, exacerbated regional inequalities, and caused 2006; Solinger, 1999; W. W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Yang, 2013; institutional and social exclusion and discrimination. Yue et al., 2013). Others have also examined the conse- The negative effect of the hukou system is reflected by the quence of the urban integration of rural–urban migrants fact that this system closely links to the livelihoods and well- (Frenkel & Yu, 2014; Gui et al., 2012; Solinger, 1999). being of Chinese people. This is a particular characteristic Unfortunately, generational differences in the urban integra- before the relaxation of hukou control since the economic tion of rural–urban migrants have not been fully articulated reform in 1980s. For instance, the state once granted people in previous studies. Particularly, to the best of our knowl- with urban hukou free or subsidized food, housing, and edge, no study has compared the intergenerational differ- health care, but such benefits were not provided to people ences in the social identity of rural–urban migrants. with rural hukou (T. Cheng & Selden, 1994). In the era of Furthermore, because there is no precise definition or a con- hukou reform, the Chinese government gradually has eradi- sensus understanding of integration (Castles et al., 2002; cated the nationwide welfare system that secures all urban Pillemer, 2000), integration is a concept used by many but citizens. However, the welfare system in China has been fea- understood differently (Robinson, 1998). Hence, studies on tured by a noteworthy degree of decentralization. This leads the urban integration of rural–urban migrants always come to the fact that welfare benefits in cities are only elaborated to diverse conclusions. for the locally born urban citizens while still excluding out- Using survey data from Wuhan, China, this research siders, for example, rural–urban migrants (Smart & Lin, draws on social integration and social identity theories to test 2007; Smart & Smart, 2001). and compare the intergenerational differences in the social Since rural–urban migrants do not have urban hukou, they identity of rural–urban migrants. The reason focusing on are still not treated as equally as urban citizens and not only rural–urban migrants but excluding other internal included into the local welfare system. Consequently, they migrants such as urban-urban migrants is that the latter basi- cannot enjoy the same welfare entitlements as urban citizens. cally have little or no rural life experience. However, in this Except for the deprivation of welfare entitlements, rural– study, we regard rural identity as a very important compo- urban migrants are also in inferior status in the labor market. nent of identity negotiation. Thus, we only include rural– They are segmented from the urban labor market and cannot urban migrants in this study. be employed in many formal sectors, may suffer wage This study has two main contributions. First, it regards arrears, and may be experienced physical and psychological generation as a vital factor influencing the social identity of harassment (Z. Cheng et al., 2015; Fan, 2002). As such, rural–urban migrants and aims to test and compare the differ- Roberts (1997) argued that rural–urban migrants in China are ences of the social identity between first-generation and as that of undocumented immigrants from Mexico to the new-generation migrants. Employing intergenerational per- United States. They have received very limited policy sup- spective as a method to observe the social integration of port to integrate into the urban society. As a result, their live- migrants has been very pervasive in academia (Alba, 2005; lihoods and well-being in urban areas are worse than the Gans, 1992; Perlmann & Waldinger, 1997; Portes & Zhou, local residents. 1993; Zhou, 1997). The advantage of this perspective is that In light of the poor social protection for rural–urban it can provide more straightforward results on migrants’ migrants, during the past decades, the Chinese government social integration than alternative methods which just com- has been dedicating to reform the hukou system to fit the pare what have changed among migrants in different ages. increasingly urbanization process in China. Due to these Second, while existing studies have only examined rural– reforms, the role of hukou in determining people’s liveli- urban migrants’ attitudes toward the urban society, this arti- hoods and well-being has been declining (Zhan, 2011). This cle considers their attitudes toward both their background also has resulted in the consequence that the intention for society (rural society) and the host society (urban society). rural–urban migrants to converse their rural hukou to urban Because the hukou system divides the Chinese society into hukou has been relatively low (C. Chen & Fan, 2016). two separate parts, rural society and urban society (Whyte, However, hukou still plays a role in terms of housing secu- 2010), rural–urban migrants have both a rural sense and an rity, social assistance, and children’s education (Lan, 2014; urban sense of belonging. Examining both rural and urban Tao, 2008), especially in large cities like Beijing, Shanghai, identity of rural–urban migrants can give a more comprehen- Guangzhou, and Shenzhen (C. Chen & Fan, 2016). Therefore, sive understanding of their identity integration. As such, this in the case of unfair welfare rights in urban areas, rural– study sheds new light on understanding the trends and out- urban migrants still have to confront with the challenges of comes of identity negotiation of rural–urban migrants in an social integration in the future. urban society. Previous studies have paid close attention to macro-fac- The structure of this study is as follows. The “Literature tors such as institutions, social condition, and the environ- Review” section gives a brief literature review on theories of ment and micro-factors including income, education, and social integration, followed by an introduction to the Leng et al. 3 hypotheses of the article in section “Intergenerational the integration strategy have the best outcome of social adap- Differences in the Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants.” tation, immigrants who adopt the assimilation and separation Section “Data and Method” illustrates the research data and strategies have the suboptimal outcome, and those who adopt methods. Section “Results” presents the empirical findings, the marginalization strategy have the worst social adaptation and section “Discussion and Conclusion” covers the discus- outcome. sion and conclusion of the article. Except for the economic-based and culture-based mea- sures, the political integration of immigrants also has received attention among researchers (Jacobs & Tillie, 2004; Literature Review Tillie, 2004; Tillie & Slijper, 2006). Both individual-level Social integration refers to the process for immigrants factors, such as gender, ethnic membership, and social activi- becoming an accepted part of society (Penninx, 2005) as ties, and group-level factors, such as social capital in the eth- well as participating in a wide range of social relations nic community, are important factors influencing immigrants’ (Brissette et al., 2000). It is a multi-dimensional concept political integration to the host society (Tillie, 2004). In par- which includes acculturation, economic, political, and iden- ticular, the importance of social capital in determining the tity integration among others (Penninx, 2005; Yue et al., political integration of immigrants calls for more empirical 2013). Traditionally, assimilation is thought to be the only tests in various national settings (Jacobs & Tillie, 2004). outcome of the social integration of immigrants from devel- Furthermore, in recent years, a large set of studies have oping countries to developed countries. According to this utilized social identity as an indicator to measure the social theory, immigrants will gradually abandon their original integration of immigrants (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003; identity and will be assimilated into the mainstream of the Pfeifer et al., 2007; Snel et al., 2006). Social identity is host society (Gordon, 1964). However, empirical studies on defined as the degree of people categorizing themselves as the social integration of new generation of immigrants chal- which social groups they belong to (Hogg & Abrams, 1988; lenged the theory, as the new generation of immigrants often Schwartz et al., 2006; Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1986; has even worse consequences of social integration than older Turner, 1985). This concept has made a remarkable contribu- generations (Gans, 1992). To explain this, the segmented tion in explaining intergroup relations (Brown, 1999). assimilation theory and the bidirectional acculturation theory Upon entry into a new society, immigrants seek to were proposed. rebuild their identity. The outcome of this reconstruction is The segmented assimilation theory suggests that the determined by two groups of factors: attributes of immi- social integration of immigrant can be understood from two grants and responses of the host society (Colic-Peisker & dimensions: economic integration and acculturation (Portes Walker, 2003). Personal characteristics which may affect & Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997). Based on this approach, there immigrants’ identity rebuilding contain language, religious are three possible outcomes for the social integration of belief, ethnicity, human capital, and social capital (Colic- immigrants. Some immigrants integrate into the White mid- Peisker & Walker, 2003; Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). dle-class, but others are opposite to the first group and are Responses of the host society like official policies toward assimilated into the underclass. Still others integrate into the immigration might also influence the process of identity mainstream of the society only in economic dimension, but reconstruction (Phinney et al., 2001). In addition, as some they deliberately preserve their original culture (Portes & researchers suggested that individual factors and responses Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997). of the host society often interact with each other, this per- The bidirectional acculturation theory, however, distin- spective is often used to explore how two different levels of guishes the acculturation of immigrants based on their atti- factors act together in determining the identity reconstruc- tudes toward the culture of the original society and the tion of immigrants (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003; Phinney culture of the host society (Berry, 1997, 2005, 2008). et al., 2001). According to this perspective, immigrants’ acculturation has Some studies have also employed social identity as an four possible strategies: integration, separation, assimilation, indicator to explore the urban integration of rural–urban and marginalization. The integration strategy indicates that migrants in China (C. Wang, 2001; W. W. Wang & Fan, immigrants are not only willing to maintain their original 2012; Yuan et al., 2013). Unfortunately, these studies have culture but also accept the culture of the host society. The not paid attention to the intergenerational differences in separation strategy means that immigrants only wish to hold rural–urban migrants’ social identity. In addition, they have their original culture but reject the culture of the host society. only examined rural–urban migrants’ attitudes toward the The assimilation strategy asserts that immigrants wish to urban society but have neglected testing their attitudes abandon their original culture but accept the culture of the toward the rural society. Rural identity refers to the degree to receiving society. The marginalization strategy signifies that which rural–urban migrants identify themselves as rural resi- immigrants neither wish to hold their original culture nor dents, while urban identity refers to the degree to which accept the culture of the host society at the same time. rural–urban migrants identify themselves as urban residents. Moreover, Berry (1997) suggests that immigrants who adopt Examining the rural and urban identity of rural–urban 4 SAGE Open migrants within the same research framework can give a who were born after 1980. They include but are not limited more complete view of their identity integration. to children of first-generation migrants. Nevertheless, sec- Notably, although many theories regard identity as a core ond-generation migrants used in the western countries only dimension of social integration, it is still debatable whether refer to children of first-generation migrants. Therefore, the social identity can be used as an indicator to examine the terminology of new-generation of rural–urban migrants in social integration of migrants. For instance, while identity is China is a broader concept than the term used in western lit- viewed as a key dimension in the assimilation theory erature. However, we argue that it is reasonable to judge the (Gordon, 1964), in other theories such as segmented assimi- social integration of rural–urban migrants by comparing the lation and acculturation, immigrants may realize socioeco- differences in social identity among first-generation migrants nomic integration without changing their original identity. In and new-generation migrants given that the two generations this study, we do not intend to equate social identity with are so different regarding values and lifestyles. Such a cate- social integration. Instead, we argue that social identity can gorization is more in line with the social and economic situ- be employed as an indicator to reflect the social integration ation of China. of rural–urban migrants in urban China. Immigrants in indus- The underlying assumption of many studies is that new- trialized societies are often different from the natives in generation migrants are more likely to identify themselves as terms of religion, ethnicity, and cultures. However, this is not urban citizens rather than rural citizens. This assumption the case of rural–urban migrants in China. Rural–urban relates to the characteristics of new-generation migrants who migrants share many similarities with urban locals in these were born and raised in the political and economic reform aspects. On the contrary, they are in inferior conditions in period with better education and broader perspective (K. W. terms of job opportunities, social welfare rights, and civic Chan, 2012; C. Wang, 2001; X. Wang, 2008). They have lit- engagement in cities because they do not have an urban tle or no experience in farming and therefore have a stronger hukou status. Consequently, they are often viewed as the desire to live in the city permanently (C. Wang, 2001, 2010; “outsiders” of the city (Du et al., 2018). Therefore, to what X. Wang, 2008). They have few or no siblings and have a extent they view themselves as the “insiders” of the city can higher aspiration for social mobility (X. Wang, 2008). They be regarded as a good indicator to represent their social inte- also have lower endurance for long-time physical work and a gration in urban China. stronger proclivity for consumerism and individualism (K. W. Chan, 2010b; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, 2010; C. Wang, 2001, 2010). These characteristics are completely dif- Intergenerational Differences in the ferent from the traits of first-generation migrants. For them, Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants on the contrary, the aim of working in the city is mostly to In general, rural–urban migrants in China can be divided into earn money to support their families in the countryside; they two generations: first generation and new generation. There basically have little or no intention to stay in the city perma- are no criteria on how to divide first-generation and new- nently (Jacka, 2006; Pun, 2005; Pun & Lu, 2010). Due to generation migrants (Pun & Lu, 2010). In academia, new- these reasons, new-generation migrants are thought to iden- generation migrants refer to those who were born after 1980, tify themselves more as urban and less as rural citizens. raised up in either countryside or in cities, and registered as Likewise, first-generation migrants are reckoned to view temporary residents in the host cities. They include but are themselves as rural citizens and not as urban citizens. not limited to children of first-generation migrants (Y. Liu However, other studies on new-generation migrants have et al., 2012). Since 1980s’ China has implemented extensive provided a totally different story. The hukou system divides economic reforms, this has remarkably eliminated many China into a rural and urban dichotomized society in which potential barriers to economic development erected by rural–urban migrants are deprived of many social welfare socialist China (Pun, 2016). Therefore, rural–urban migrants entitlements and are regarded as second-class citizens (K. W. who were born after 1980 experienced totally different Chan, 2010b; Solinger, 1999; Wong et al., 2007). The con- social, economic, and political changes compared with those cept of “migrant worker” represents a quasi-identity status. who were born earlier. As a result, rural–urban migrants are For new-generation migrants, this status represents the often categorized into two generations based on the above unfinished process of proletarianization (Pun & Lu, 2010). time frame (Hao & Tang, 2015; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, Proletarianization refers to the phenomenon in western coun- 2010; Tang & Feng, 2015; X. Wang, 2008). Also, this catego- tries that with the urbanization and industrialization, the sur- rization reflects the change of rural–urban migrants’ percep- plus labor force in the countryside gradually transits into the tion of capital, the state, and their social position (Pun & Lu, urban working class. Moreover, those new urban middle- 2010). class citizens integrate into the urban society also in cultural, It is worth noting that the concept of new-generation political, and identity dimensions without experiencing great rural–urban migrants in China is different from the concept difficulties. However, the identity reconstruction of rural– of second-generation migrants in western countries. New- urban migrants in the process of urbanization and industrial- generation migrants in China refer to rural–urban migrants ization of China is at a stalled status. The quasi-identity Leng et al. 5 causes new-generation migrants to generate feelings of “hav- To recap, the hypotheses of the article can be formulated ing no future as a labor force in urban areas and no meaning as follows: to return to the village” (K. W. Chan, 2010b). The dilemma of identity reconstruction also leads to yielding anger, Hypothesis 1: First-generation migrants are more likely trauma, and feeling of profound unfairness (Pun & Lu, 2010). to adhere to the rural society than new-generation This desperation forces new-generation migrants to confront migrants, that is, they tend to view themselves as peasants with the identity problem of “who I am.” This kind of per- rather than urban citizens. plexity in identity further generates some extreme resistance, Hypothesis 2: New-generation migrants are more likely such as suicidal behavior and collective actions against the to adhere to the urban society than first-generation government (J. Chan & Pun, 2010; Pun & Lu, 2010). migrants, that is, they tend to identify themselves as urban Therefore, there is a competing hypothesis on the social citizens rather than peasants. identity of new-generation migrants. They may be in the con- dition of identity perplexity, which means they regard them- However, the social identity of new-generation migrants selves as neither urban nor rural citizens. If this were the case, may still be examined from another angle. In this case, since new-generation migrants may have even more difficulties in the experience of social and institutional exclusion in the the identity integration than the first-generation migrants urban society, they build their urban identity very slowly because they may be marginalized from the urban and rural just like first-generation migrants. Under this situation, they society simultaneously. Notably, this hypothesis is similar to may have identity perplexity. Thus, we posited the third the “second-generation decline” theory which is described as hypothesis: a mismatch of the aspirations of second-generation migrants and the real living conditions that they have (Gans, 1992; Hypothesis 3: Because of the barriers in the urban soci- Perlmann & Waldinger, 1997). This theory has been widely ety, the identity reconstruction of new-generation migrants used to examine the social integration of new-generation is at a stalled status. They tend to view themselves neither immigrants in developed countries (Alba, 2005; Waters, as peasants nor as urban citizens. 1994; Zhou, 1997). Notably, this study judges the “second- generation decline” by comparing the differences in social Data and Method identity between first-generation migrants and new-genera- tion migrants, which is different from previous studies that Data have focused on the socioeconomic conditions of migrants. The data utilized came from a survey in Wuhan, China. As described above, social identity is a good indicator to rep- Wuhan is the largest urban area in the central area of China. resent the social integration of rural–urban migrants in urban The land area of Wuhan is 8,494.41 km , with 13 urban dis- China. Thus, it is reasonable to use the terminology of “sec- tricts. The economy of Wuhan is quite robust. In 2013, the ond-generation decline” in the present study. GDP per capita of Wuhan was nearly 88,564 yuan (Wuhan Empirical studies have also revealed similar competing Bureau of Statistics, 2014). Because of these reasons, Wuhan is hypotheses. Some researchers have found that since the a very popular destination for rural–urban migrants. Figure 1 importance of hukou system has declined substantially shows the change of demographic structure of Wuhan from (Zhan, 2011), rural–urban migrants are gradually transition- 1980 to 2014. It shows that the number of migrant population ing into the urban middle class (Frenkel & Yu, 2014). By in Wuhan has been increasing since the economic reform in contrast, other researchers have suggested that because of the China in 1980s. Typically, after the global economic crisis in institutional and cultural exclusion associated with the hukou 2008, enormous factories moved from the eastern to central system in the urban society, rural–urban migrants are falling into the urban underclass (Solinger, 1999) and are becoming China, and Wuhan is a pervasive choice for the relocation of a marginalized group within the urban society (Wong et al., many factories. As a result, the migrant population in Wuhan 2007). According to the former perspective, rural–urban has increased substantially. In 2014, there are over 2 million migrants’ urban sense of belonging will accumulate with migrants (rural–urban migrants and urban–urban migrants) increasing time in the city because the economic integration in Wuhan, accounting for nearly 20% of its total population. will provide the foundation for rural–urban migrants to Wuhan is a special region to study the social identity of acquire a strong sense of urban belonging. Based on the latter rural–urban migrants for the reason that the proportion of perspective, rural–urban migrants’ identity negotiation will migrant population in Wuhan is about 20% which is different be stalled at a status no matter how long they stay in the city, from other megacities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and as the institutional and cultural exclusion of urban society Shenzhen where nearly half of the residents are migrants. In creates an invisible wall between rural–urban migrants and fact, investigating the social identity of rural–urban migrants urban citizens. Rural–urban migrants will never have a in a society which is dominated by local residents can mirror strong sense of urban belonging so long as the institutional the process of identity reconstruction of migrants better than and cultural restrictions exist. the evidence from those so called “migrant cities.” Currently, 6 SAGE Open China (Table 1). We assumed that our sample should be close to the industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants in the central area of China, because Wuhan is located in this region. We collected the data in several stages. First, we randomly selected five urban districts in Wuhan. Next, based on the industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants, we randomly chose firms based on a name list of firms located in the selected five urban districts. We chose 25 firms in total. Of those, 21 accepted our request to be surveyed. With the help 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Year of personnel management department, we then had face-to- Hukou population Resident population face interview on rural–urban migrants working in the Migrant population selected firms. However, for rural–urban migrants distrib- uted in wholesale and retail and other industries, most of them are self-employed, and thus not covered by the 21 Figure 1. Demographic structure of Wuhan city, 1980 to 2014. Source. Wuhan Statistical Yearbook (Wuhan Bureau of Statistics, 2014). selected firms. To balance the industrial distribution of rural– urban migrants in our sample, we also surveyed rural–urban migrants from wholesale and retail industry and other indus- these cities are struggling with the loss of local culture tries in the selected five urban districts as well. We randomly because of the influx of migrants. Therefore, on one hand, interviewed 104 and 88 migrants from these two sectors rural–urban migrants are assimilated into the mainstream of respectively. Besides, we controlled the quality of the survey the society in these cities; on the other hand, local residents by conducting a pilot study. In total, we issued 1,555 ques- of these cities are also significantly influenced by “migrant tionnaires. We collected 1,023 questionnaires back (response culture.” Instead, the process of identity rebuilding of rate 66%), and of these questionnaires, 909 are valid. Before migrants in Wuhan is more comparable to immigrants in data analysis, we first deleted invalid cases with missing val- western countries who mostly seek to integrate into the host ues in our sample, and got a sample with 835 cases. Since our society because local residents account for the vast majority. research focuses on rural–urban migrants, we also deleted Besides, previous studies on urban integration of rural–urban those migrants who have an urban hukou status (146 cases). migrants generally based on data from the eastern area of Finally, 689 questionnaires were analyzed. Table 1 shows the China (Y. Chen & Wang, 2015; Yang, 2013; Yue et al., 2013), industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants in our sample. while less attention has been paid to cities located in the cen- The percentage of rural–urban migrants in the above men- tral area of China, except for a few cases (W. W. Wang & tioned seven industries is 23.51%, 28.74%, 14.95%, 7.84%, Fan, 2012). This study can enrich evidence from this area. 7.26%, 8.27%, and 9.43% respectively. In the survey, we adopted the same definition as National Bureau of Statistics of China (2016) and defined rural–urban Measure migrants as those who hold a rural hukou status but live in cities for at least 6 months. One of the biggest difficulties to We used dependent variables as the rural identity and urban survey rural–urban migrants in China is that there is no pre- identity of rural–urban migrants. In previous studies, W. W. cise sampling frame. This is because many migrants are not Wang and Fan (2012) and Lin et al. (2016) used a binary registered in host cities’ population registration system. variable to measure rural–urban migrants’ self-identity, while Consequently, traditional sampling method based on the Yue et al. (2013) used a scale aggregating three observed population registration system often results in sample bias variables to measure it. In this study, we referred to the mea- (Kong, 2010). To cope with this issue, we determined the sures of these studies. We used an ordinal variable to mea- sampling frame by referring to the industrial distribution of sure both dependent variables. Rural identity was measured rural–urban migrants. The reason for this is that according to by asking respondents “taking it by and large, I think I am a the national survey report Investigation Report on Rural– rural resident.” Urban identity was measured by asking Urban Migrants 2013 (National Bureau of Statistics of respondents “taking it by and large, I think I am an urban China, 2014), rural–urban migrants are proportionally dis- resident.” For both responses, we used a 5-point Likert-type tributed in seven different industries. These industries scale: “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “so-so,” “agree,” and include the following: (a) construction, (b) manufacturing, “strongly agree.” (c) wholesale and retail, (d) accommodation and catering, (e) Generation, which is our key independent variable, is a transportation, warehousing and postal industry, (f) resident binary variable. In agreement with previous studies (Hao & services and other services, and (g) other industries. In addi- Tang, 2015; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, 2010; Tang & tion, the report distinguished the industrial distribution of Feng, 2015; X. Wang, 2008), we divided rural–urban rural–urban migrants in nationwide and different regions of migrants into two generations: first generation and new Number of population (million) 0 2 4 6 8 10 Leng et al. 7 Table 1. Distribution of Rural–Urban Migrants in Different Industries. Industry N % Central area Nationwide Construction industry 162 23.51 20.1 31.40 Manufacturing industry 198 28.74 28.5 22.20 Wholesale and retail industry 103 14.95 12.9 11.30 Accommodation and catering industry 54 7.84 6.2 5.90 Transportation, warehousing, and postal industry 50 7.26 7.3 6.30 Resident services and other services industry 57 8.27 11.1 10.60 Other industries 65 9.43 13.9 12.30 Total 689 100 100 100 generation. First-generation migrants are those who were migrants were measured by asking respondents “do you have born before 1980, and new-generation migrants are those often contact with local urban residents?” and “do you have who were born after 1980. In addition, we also controlled often contact with other rural–urban migrants?” Both rural–urban migrants’ demographic characteristics, length of responses include two options: “yes” and “no.” In addition, urban residence, socioeconomic traits, language proficiency, Fan (2011) suggested that how the family is split (e.g., single residential area, family tie, social tie with other rural–urban migrant, sole migrants, childless couple migrants, couple migrants, and social tie with local urban residents in data migrants, and family migrants) is a significant predictor of analysis. urban settlement of rural–urban migrants. Thus, we could Demographic characteristics include gender, place of predict that having family members in the city is positively birth, and marital status. Gender is a binary variable (0 = related to their urban identity. The family tie of rural–urban female, 1 = male). Place of birth was divided into two catego- migrants was measured with the question “do you live ries: city and countryside. Marital status was categorized into together with your family members in the working city?” married and unmarried. Length of urban residence was mea- The response is again binary (0 = no, 1 = yes). sured according to the years that rural–urban migrants have L. Liu et al. (2017) found that the residential segregation lived in the city (both Wuhan and other cities). We divided it tends to reinforce rural–urban migrants’ perceptions of social into three categories: less than 5 years, 5–10 years, and more exclusion, which is a big challenge on their social integra- than 10 years. tion. Therefore, we expect that there is a significant relation- Socioeconomic traits include educational attainment, ship between residential area and social identity of income, and occupation. Educational attainment of rural– rural–urban migrants. The variable to measure the residential urban migrants was measured by asking respondents “what area of rural–urban migrants was measured by asking them is your educational background?” Responses include four “what is the type of community that you living place is options: primary education or below, middle school educa- located?” Responses include three types: communities domi- tion, high school education, and university or above. Rural– nated by urban residents, mixed areas, and migrant enclaves. urban migrants’ income was measured by asking them “how much is your monthly income?” We categorized it into three Methods levels: below 2000 yuan, 2000 to 5,000 yuan, and above 5,000 yuan. Occupation of rural–urban migrants was mea- The baseline model in this study is ordered logistic regres- sured with the question “what is your job?” Following the sion. However, this model has the proportional odds assump- categorization method of Wu and Treiman (2007), we tion that the coefficients are the same for each value of divided it into five types: professionals and managers, rou- dependent variable, which is often violated (Williams, 2006). tine non-manual workers, small property owners, foreman To resolve this issue, some improved models, such as the and skilled workers, and semi and unskilled workers. heterogeneous choice model and generalized ordered logistic Language is an important determinant of the reconstruc- model, were proposed (Williams, 2006, 2009, 2010). Since tion of migrants’ identity (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003; Williams (2010) suggested that the heterogeneous choice Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). In this research, the lan- model is a more attractive alternative to the generalized guage skill of rural–urban migrants was measured by asking ordered logistic model for its simplicity, we used this model them whether they can fluently speak mandarin and Wuhan in this study. This model is expressed as follows: local dialect. Both responses are binary variables (0 = poor,   xk β − ik km 1 = fluent). ∑   Py > m = invlogit , () (1) Social ties have been identified as significant factors of     the social integration of rural–urban migrants (Haug, 2008; mM =− 12 ,,,, 1 Yue et al., 2013). In this study, the social ties of rural–urban 8 SAGE Open where x is a vector of k values for the ith observation. The xs Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Independent Variables. are the determinants of the dependent variable y which has m Variables % categories. β is a vector of coefficients. σ is a parameter which indicates how the underlying latent variable is scaled Gender Male 68.51 for each case, which can be expressed as follows: Female 31.49   Generation   (2) σγ = exp, z i ij j First generation 49.78     New generation 50.22 where the zs are groups with different error variances in the Place of birth underlying variable, and the γs represent how the zs affect the Countryside 98.40 variance. City 1.60 Marital status We used Stata 14.0 to conduct data analysis. After per- Married 71.84 forming the basic model, the brant test was employed to Unmarried 28.16 identify what variables violate the proportional odds assump- Length of urban residence (years) tion. Then, the hetero option is utilized in the heterogeneous <5 69.96 choice model to adjust variables identified to break the pro- 5–10 20.03 portional odds assumption. As we collected data based on the >10 10.01 industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants, when con- Educational attainment ducting data analysis, we also controlled the fixed effects of Primary school or below 20.75 industries in regression models. Junior high school 43.40 Senior high school 24.53 Results University or above 11.32 Income (yuan per month) Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of independent vari- <2,000 16.26 ables. The percentage of male rural–urban migrants is 2,000–5,000 74.17 68.51%; the proportion of first-generation migrants is about >5,000 9.58 50%; nearly 98% of rural–urban migrants were born in the Occupation countryside; 28.16% of rural–urban migrants are unmarried. Professionals and managers 6.97 More than 62% of rural–urban migrants live with their fam- Routine non-manual workers 11.32 ily members in urban areas. As for the length of urban resi- Small property owners 19.59 dence, nearly 70% of rural–urban migrants have less than 5 Foreman and skilled workers 40.49 years, 20% of them have 5 to 10 years, and 10% of them have Semi and unskilled workers 21.63 more than 10 years of urban residence. The majority of rural– Residential area urban migrants have junior high school or senior high school Communities dominated by urban residents 15.38 Mixed areas 38.17 education, and only about 11% have university or above edu- Migrant enclaves 46.44 cation. About 74% of rural–urban migrants’ income is in the Social tie with urban residents range from 2000 to 5,000 yuan per month. The percentages Yes 18.72 of professionals and managers, routine non-manual workers, No 81.28 small property owners, foreman and skilled workers, and Social tie with rural–urban migrants semi and unskilled workers are 6.97%, 11.32%, 19.59%, Yes 52.10 40.49%, and 21.63%, respectively. Most rural–urban No 47.90 migrants live in migrant enclaves (46%), followed by mixed Family tie areas (38%) and communities dominated by urban residents Yes 62.12 (15%). Only a small proportion of them have often contact No 37.88 with urban residents (19%), but about half have often contact Mandarin proficiency with other rural–urban migrants (52%). As for their language Fluent 85.20 skills, nearly 85% expressed that they can speak fluent man- Poor 14.80 darin. On the contrary, only 13% stated that they can speak Dialect proficiency fluently the Wuhan local dialect. Fluent 86.79 Figure 2 shows that both first-generation and new-gener- Poor 13.21 ation migrants have prominent differences in rural identity. More first-generation migrants tend to view themselves as rural citizens rather than new-generation migrants; 72% of rural residents, but only 17% of them disagree or strongly first-generation migrants agree or strongly agree that they are disagree that they are rural residents. On the contrary, only Leng et al. 9 Figure 2. Distribution of rural identity of first-generation and new-generation migrants. Figure 3. Distribution of urban identity of first-generation and new-generation migrants. 30% of new-generation migrants agree or strongly agree that urban residents are 73% and 62%, respectively. This result they are rural residents, and 25% are in an indeterminate means that both first-generation and new-generation migrants state. Yet, as many as 44% disagree or strongly disagree that have a very weak sense of urban identity. Fan (2002) also they are rural residents. suggested that rural–urban migrants tend to identify them- In contrast, the urban identity of first-generation and new- selves as outsiders of cities. generation migrants shows no big differences. Figure 3 Table 3 presents the association between generation and shows that the percentages of first-generation and new-gen- characteristics of rural–urban migrants based on the chi- eration migrants who agree or strongly agree that they are square test. The results suggest that first-generation urban residents are 11% and 14%, respectively. On the con- migrants and new-generation migrants have significant dif- trary, the proportions of first-generation and new-generation ferences in marital status, place of birth, length of urban migrants who disagree or strongly disagree that they are residence, educational attainment, occupational status, 10 SAGE Open Table 3. Chi-Square Test on the Association Between Generation and First-Generation and New-Generation Migrants’ Characteristics. Variables First generation (%) New generation (%) χ Gender 3.27 Male 71.72 65.32 Female 28.28 34.68 Place of birth 7.40** City 0.29 2.89 Countryside 99.71 97.11 Marital status 215.13*** Married 97.08 46.82 Unmarried 2.92 53.18 Length of urban residence (years) 42.23*** <5 59.48 80.35 5–10 24.49 15.61 >10 16.03 4.05 Educational attainment 203.41*** Primary school and below 38.48 3.18 Junior high school 47.52 39.31 Senior high school 12.24 36.71 University or above 1.75 20.81 Income (yuan per month) 3.95 <2,000 14.87 17.63 2,000–5,000 73.47 74.86 >5,000 11.66 7.51 Occupation 52.26*** Professionals and managers 5.25 8.67 Routine non-manual workers 6.12 16.47 Small property owners 23.62 15.61 Foreman and skilled workers 34.99 45.95 Semi and unskilled workers 30.03 13.29 Residential area 43.62*** Communities dominated by urban residents 13.12 17.63 Mixed areas 27.99 48.27 Migrant enclaves 58.89 34.10 Social tie with urban residents 0.19 Yes 18.08 19.36 No 81.92 80.64 Social tie with rural–urban migrants 28.96*** Yes 62.39 41.91 No 37.61 58.09 Family tie in the city 0.23 Yes 61.22 63.01 No 38.78 36.99 Mandarin proficiency 18.82*** Fluent 79.30 91.04 Poor 20.70 8.96 Dialect proficiency 0.09 Fluent 12.83 13.58 Poor 87.17 86.42 **p < .01. ***p < .001. residential area, social tie with rural–urban migrants, and The disparities in marital status and length of urban resi- mandarin proficiency (p < .05). Nevertheless, there are no dence are more or less related to the age gap between two significant differences shown in gender, income, family tie, generations of rural–urban migrants. The significant higher social tie with urban residents, and dialect proficiency proportion of new-generation migrants who were born in the among them (p > .05). city reflects that their childhood experience is different from Leng et al. 11 the first-generation migrants. The divergences in educational are not significantly related to rural identity. Considering that attainment and mandarin proficiency mean that first-genera- rural–urban migrants usually have more connections with tion and new-generation migrants have great differences in other migrants than local urban citizens, the relationship personal traits. Other studies have also revealed that new- between social ties with rural–urban migrants and rural iden- generation migrants have better education than first-genera- tity means that frequent social contact with one social group tion migrants (C. Wang, 2001; X. Wang, 2008). In addition, may result in an “ingroup” categorization. While mandarin the distinctions in occupational status, residential area, and proficiency is negatively associated with rural–urban social tie with other rural–urban migrants mirror that differ- migrants’ rural identity, Wuhan dialect proficiency shows no ent generations of rural–urban migrants have distinctive significant relation to it. This result suggests that mandarin preferences in jobs, living environments, and social rela- proficiency is more important than knowing a dialect in tions. This result is in agreement with the finding that new- rebuilding rural–urban migrants’ rural identity. Finally, fam- generation migrants prefer non-manual jobs and the urban ily social ties are not significantly related to rural identity. lifestyle to manual jobs and the rural lifestyle (K. W. Chan, Table 5 shows the results of the heterogeneous choice 2010b; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, 2010; C. Wang, 2001, model on the urban identity of rural–urban migrants. The 2010). The diversities in personal traits and preferences may brant test shows that residential area, mandarin proficiency, explain why first-generation and new-generation migrants and social ties with urban residents break the parallel-lines exhibit very different attitudes toward rural social identity. assumption of the ordered logistic model. Thus, we used the Nonetheless, the insignificant discrepancy in income reflects hetero option to adjust these variables in the heterogeneous that new-generation migrants do not have significant upward choice model. The results indicate that the coefficient of gen- social mobility compared with first-generation migrants. eration is not statistically significant, which indicates that the Also, the insignificant difference in family tie, social tie with second hypothesis of this study that new-generation migrants urban residents, and dialect proficiency embodies that new- are more likely to view themselves as urban citizens is generation migrants do not necessarily have better social rejected by our data. In other words, the two different genera- capital than first-generation migrants in an urban society. tions of rural–urban migrants show no significant difference This may reveal why rural–urban migrants have a weak in urban identity. This is consistent with what is reflected by sense of urban belonging. Figure 3 that they all have a weak sense of urban belonging. Table 4 reports the results of the heterogeneous choice Among demographic factors, the results suggest that model on the rural identity of rural–urban migrants. The males are less likely to view themselves as urban citizens brant test shows that residential area, occupational status, than females, which is opposite to the positive correlation marital status, and educational attainments break the assump- between gender and rural identity. Marital status and place of tion of the ordered logistic model. Therefore, we adjusted birth show no significant relation to rural–urban migrants’ these variables in the heterogeneous choice model by using urban identity. Some studies suggested that the duration of the hetero option. After controlling for other covariates, the urban stay is not related to rural–urban migrants’ urban iden- coefficient of generation is −0.81 and statistically signifi- tity (W. W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Yue et al., 2013). Our study cant. This means that new-generation migrants are less likely also shows the same result. than first-generation migrants to view themselves as rural Regarding socioeconomic factors, education comes statis- people. Therefore, we cannot reject our first hypothesis that tically insignificant. This is in line with other studies which first-generation migrants have a stronger sense of rural suggest that education is not significantly associated with identity. rural–urban migrants’ sense of urban belonging (Yue et al., Among demographic factors, unmarried status is nega- 2013). Income is only weakly correlated to the urban identity tively associated with rural–urban migrants’ rural identity. (p < .1), that is, rural–urban migrants with a monthly income However, being male and being urban born are not signifi- above 5,000 yuan are more likely to view themselves as urban cantly related to it. As for socioeconomic factors, having uni- citizens. W. W. Wang and Fan (2012) also reported that versity or above education is negatively related to rural income only marginally influences the urban identity integra- identity. This is also the case of the relationship between tion of rural–urban migrants. Occupational status, however, income and rural identity. On the contrary, occupational sta- exhibits a significantly positive association with urban iden- tus is not significantly associated with it. tity. Compared with semi-skilled and unskilled workers, pro- Residential area only shows no significant association fessionals and managers, small property owners, and foreman with rural identity. That is, compared with those who live in and skilled workers are more likely to regard themselves as migrant enclaves, rural–urban migrants live in the mixed urban citizens. This result indicates that the significant role of communities and communities dominated by urban residents occupational status, as an indicator of social mobility, is shap- show no significant difference in rural identity. Furthermore, ing rural–urban migrants’ urban identity. those rural–urban migrants who have social tie with other Residential area is not significantly related to the urban rural–urban migrants tend to more likely to view themselves identity of rural–urban migrants. However, the lnsigma as rural people. However, social ties with local urban citizens parameterization shows that rural–urban migrants who live 12 SAGE Open Table 4. Generalized Ordered Logistic Regression Results on the Rural Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants. Variables Coefficients SE Beta Generation (ref: first generation) −0.810*** 0.247 Gender (ref: female) 0.542** 0.190 Place of birth (ref: city) −0.065 0.751 Marital status (ref: married) −0.682** 0.245 Educational attainment (ref: primary school or below) Junior high school −0.576** 0.215 Senior high school −0.691* 0.275 University or above −1.584*** 0.477 Income (ref: <2,000 yuan per month) 2,000–5,000 −0.231 0.209 >5,000 −0.540 0.335 Occupation (ref: professionals and managers) Routine non-manual workers 0.069 0.325 Small property owners 0.004 0.284 Foreman and skilled workers −0.002 0.237 Semi and unskilled workers −0.098 0.187 Residential area (ref: migrant enclaves) Communities dominated by urban residents −0.465 0.263 Mixed areas −0.013 0.167 Length of urban residence (ref: <5 years) 5–10 −0.351 0.196 >10 −0.248 0.196 Social ties with urban residents (ref: no) −0.116 0.197 Social ties with rural–urban migrants (ref: no) 0.449* 0.186 Family tie in the city (ref: no) 0.158 0.160 Mandarin proficiency (ref: poor) −0.562* 0.225 Dialect proficiency (ref: poor) −0.109 0.218 lnsigma Marital status 0.113 0.102 Educational attainment 0.050 0.054 Occupation −0.035 0.037 Residential area −0.010 0.058 Log likelihood −951.42 LR χ 228.83 Probability > χ 0.000 Pseudo R .11 Note. Wald’s test of parallel-lines assumption for the final model indicates that the final model does not violate the proportional odds/parallel-lines assumption (p > .05). SE = standard error; LR = likelihood-ratio. p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in communities dominated by urban residents have more het- parameterization indicates that the variation of identity pat- erogeneous identity patterns than those who live in the terns is smaller among those who cannot fluently speak man- migrant enclaves. In other words, unmeasured variables darin. In line with W. W. Wang and Fan’s (2012) study, affecting identity integration of rural–urban migrants may be rural–urban migrants who are good at Wuhan dialect tend to more important for those who live in communities domi- view themselves as urban citizens. This result is consistent nated by urban residents than those who live in the migrant with previous studies that local language plays a significant enclaves. This is not a surprise because rural–urban migrants role in identity integration of migrants (Colic-Peisker & live in better communities have more chances to contact with Walker, 2003; Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). Notably, local residents. Therefore, it will be easier for some of them although social ties with other migrants display no signifi- to integrate into the host society. cant association with urban identity, social ties with urban Mandarin proficiency is only weakly related to rural– local citizens show a significant positive relation with it. This lnsigma urban migrants’ urban identity (p < .1), but the result indicates the importance of social networks with local Leng et al. 13 Table 5. Generalized Ordered Logistic Regression Results on the Urban Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants. Variables Coefficients SE Beta Generation (ref: first generation) 0.149 0.142 Gender (ref: female) −0.377** 0.129 Place of birth (ref: city) −0.622 0.444 Marital status (ref: married) 0.078 0.146 Educational attainment (ref: primary school or below) Junior high school 0.155 0.152 Senior high school 0.045 0.180 University or above 0.048 0.227 Income (ref: <2000 yuan per month) 2,000–5,000 0.177 0.145 >5,000 0.416 0.231 Occupation (ref: professionals and managers) Routine non-manual workers 0.749** 0.255 Small property owners 0.677** 0.228 Foreman and skilled workers 0.797*** 0.216 Semi and unskilled workers 0.223 0.145 Residential area (ref: migrant enclaves) Communities dominated by urban residents 0.031 0.181 Mixed areas −0.181 0.126 Length of urban residence (ref: <5 years) 5–10 0.213 0.136 >10 0.225 0.202 Social ties with urban residents (ref: no) 0.374* 0.163 Social ties with rural–urban migrants (ref: no) 0.023 0.108 Family tie in the city (ref: no) 0.324 0.124 Mandarin proficiency (ref: poor) 0.340 0.178 Dialect proficiency (ref: poor) 0.473** 0.181 lnsigma Residential area (ref: migrant enclaves) −0.071 0.055 Social ties with urban residents 0.257* 0.102 Mandarin proficiency −0.279* 0.123 Log likelihood −843.50 LR χ 111.39 Probability > χ 0.000 Pseudo R .06 Note. Wald’s test of parallel-lines assumption for the final model indicates that the final model does not violate the proportional odds/parallel-lines assumption (p > .05). SE = standard error; LR = likelihood-ratio. p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. people for rural–urban migrants’ identity integration in the vital variable, has not received enough attention when ana- urban society. In addition, those who live with family mem- lyzing factors influencing the social identity of rural–urban bers are more likely to view themselves as urban citizens, migrants in China. Moreover, previous studies have not which suggests that the family network is also very crucial taken into consideration of their attitudes toward rural soci- for the identity integration of rural–urban migrants in an ety. Based on the survey data from Wuhan, we compared and urban society. This result is in line with the trend that more tested the intergenerational differences in the social identity and more migrants choose the pattern of family migration of rural–urban migrants. and settle down in cities permanently. The study supports our first hypothesis that first-genera- tion migrants have a strong sense of rural identity. They are more likely to identify themselves as peasants rather than Discussion and Conclusion urban citizens. In our data, a large proportion of first-genera- Social identity is an important indicator in evaluating the tion migrants agreed that they are rural citizens and disagree social integration of migrants. However, generation, as a that they are urban citizens. Instead of supporting the second 14 SAGE Open hypothesis, our study supports the third hypothesis that new- between them and urban locals hinder them to permanently generation migrants’ social identity reconstruction is at a reside in cities. Therefore, although many new-generation stalled status. That is, they identify themselves as neither migrants do wish to settle in cities, they may be not able to rural nor urban people. Therefore, our study indicates that realize the intention because of the social discrimination. there are significant intergenerational differences in the That is why they do not view themselves as urban residents. social identity of rural–urban migrants. As a result, there is a gap between their aspirations and the Our results complement potential shortcomings of previ- reality. Without radical reform the social and institutional ous studies which have not considered the role of generation constraints in the city, the mismatch between their aspira- and rural–urban migrants’ attitudes toward rural society (W. tions and the practical situation of their identity integration W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Yuan et al., 2013). The original cul- will continue. Consequently, new-generation migrants are in ture of immigrants is emphasized both in the segmented danger of falling into the second-generation decline. assimilation theory (Portes & Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997) and What factors cause rural–urban migrants in China to face the acculturation theory (Berry, 1997, 2005, 2008). Likewise, the risk of falling into the second-generation decline? our study also suggests that rural–urban migrants’ attitudes Theoretically, every country in the process of industrializa- toward their background society cannot be neglected in the tion and urbanization is accompanied with internal popula- theoretical framework when analyzing their social identity. tion mobility from the less to more developed areas. Some However, the present study is different from the segmented classic theories, such as the making of working class assimilation theory and the acculturation theory because the (Thompson, 1963) and labor force supply (Lewis, 1954), latter two theories are based on studies on international hold that with the industrialization and urbanization of a migrants. As Yang (2013) reports, our research also indicates country, the labor force will gradually move from the coun- that the identity integration of rural–urban migrants in differ- tryside to urban areas, forming an urban working middle ent generations is not a linear pattern. New-generation class. However, none of these theories predicted that the new migrants have a significant weaker sense of rural identity urban middle class will be confronted with difficulties of than first-generation migrants, while they show no signifi- identity reconstruction. In this sense, our study challenges cant stronger sense of urban identity than first-generation these theories. It provides evidence showing that under some migrants. In other words, they tend to view themselves as specific social contexts, even if internal migrants in a coun- neither rural residents nor urban residents. Therefore, their try can successfully integrate into an urban society economi- identity negotiation is at a stalled status. cally, their identity integration is not unproblematic. Our results are consistent with existing studies where Therefore, under various circumstances, rural–urban first-generation migrants show a strong sense of rural but a migrants’ identity rebuilding might have different possibili- weak sense of urban identity (Jacka, 2006; Pun, 2005; Pun & ties. Phinney et al. (2001) suggests that when personal char- Lu, 2010). This result is in line with the characteristics of acteristics of immigrants interact with external factors of the first-generation migrants who have less desire to perma- host society such as policies and social values, they may nently stay in the city than new-generation migrants (Tang & have different patterns of identity negotiation. This argument Feng, 2015). In addition, there are strong pulling forces to may hint why rural–urban migrants face the risk of falling maintain their rural identity such as family bonds and social into the second-generation decline. Although new-genera- networks in the countryside. For instance, W. W. Wang and tion migrants tend to become urban citizens, the construction Fan (2006) highlighted family obligations as important fac- of their urban identity is at a stalled status. Except for the tors for rural–urban migrants to return to hometown. obstructive factors such as occupational segmentation, lan- Nonetheless, the stalled identity negotiation of new-genera- guage barriers, and residential areas, we should notice that tion migrants means that although they express strong desires the hukou system is a prominent barrier to their identity inte- to permanently reside in cities rather than stay in the country- gration. In fact, the hukou system is a significant factor which side, they are confronted with substantial difficulties to over- causes cultural exclusion, labor market segmentation, social come the social and institutional constrains which hinder welfare exclusion, as well as social discrimination (K. W. their urban integration. Chan, 2009, 2010a, 2010b; Fan, 2002; Wong et al., 2007). The stalled identity negotiation suggests that new-genera- Such exclusions considerably reduce their opportunities to tion migrants may be in danger of falling into the second- acquire decent or well-paid jobs, prohibiting their upward generation decline because there is a mismatch between their social mobility, and leading them to be a marginalized group aspirations and the practical situation of their identity inte- in the urban society (Fan, 2002; Wong et al., 2007; Wu & gration. Specifically, new-generation migrants do not wish to Treiman, 2007). Therefore, we argue that it is the interaction live in the countryside because they are used to the lifestyle between obstructive factors at the individual level and the of the city (K. W. Chan, 2010b; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, hukou system at a higher level that causes the identity nego- 2010; C. Wang, 2001, 2010; X. Wang, 2008). That is why tiation of new-generation stalled. they do not view themselves as rural residents. However, the Despite the fact that the Chinese government has pledged unequal job opportunities, welfare rights, and citizenship to reform the hukou system, the role of the hukou system in Leng et al. 15 influencing rural–urban migrants’ urban identity indicates estimation results. Instead, this study demonstrates the dif- that it has become a kind of institutional symbol in Chinese ferences in the social identity between first-generation and society. Customarily, people tend to utilize the hukou system new-generation migrants. It may contribute to further under- to categorize others as insiders or outsiders of urban society. standing of their identity negotiation. Our future task is to That is why many researchers identify the hukou system as a expand this study and focus on exploring evidence from a significant factor which leads to identity discrimination national representative survey. against rural–urban migrants (Afridi et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2014). To some extent, abolishing the hukou system is Declaration of Conflicting Interests just one step to improve their identity integration. How to The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect radically remove the institutional legacy of the hukou system to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. is probably an even tougher task to deal with in the future. The emergence of the second-generation decline in terms Funding of identity integration challenges the viewpoint that rural– The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support urban migrants will automatically integrate into the urban for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This society with generational replacement during the process of study was financially supported by the Humanities and Social industrialization and urbanization of China. This phenome- Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (MOE; non indicates that in a rural–urban dichotomized society, Grant No. 19YJC840049) and self-determined research funds of CCNU from the colleges’ basic research and operation of MOE without institutional support, although rural–urban migrants (Grant Nos CCNU19TD005 and CCNU19A03009). may integrate into the urban society economically, they may never achieve identity integration. Therefore, we argue that ORCID iD the identity integration of rural–urban migrants in China is not the necessary result of the industrialization and urbaniza- Shenghua Xie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1222-8921 tion of China, and the institutional support also plays an important role as other factors like the socioeconomic fac- Notes tors. Thus, our research suggests that the Chinese govern- 1. The hukou records Chinese people’s personal information ment should reform the hukou system and eradicate its such as name, parents, ethnicity, data of birth, and political institutional legacy. This policy package is very important in affiliation, among others. It also significantly affects Chinese creating an institutionally and socially inclusive society and people’s social welfare entitlements such as education and prevents rural–urban migrants from falling into the second- medical service. More information on the hukou system has been documented in considerable literature (K. W. Chan, 2009, generation decline. 2010a, 2010b). To conclude, this study has three main contributions. 2. In Wu and Treiman’s (2007) study, they divided occupations into First, it is very important to pay attention to the role of gen- six categories: professionals and managers, routine non-manual eration when analyzing the social integration of rural–urban workers, small property owners, foreman and skilled workers, migrants. Second, while previous studies on social identity semi and unskilled workers, and farmers. In our study, we did of rural–urban migrants neglect the importance of migrants’ not regard farmer as an occupation of rural–urban migrants. attitudes toward original society, this study indicates that Therefore, the occupation of them was divided into five catego- when analyzing rural–urban migrants’ social identity, of ries in our study. Besides, in this study, small property owners great significance is to consider the influence of rural–urban refer to those who operate small business with a small number migrants’ attitudes toward their background society. 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ISSN: 2158-2440
eISSN: 2158-2440
DOI: 10.1177/2158244020939539
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Abstract

Previous studies have not adequately articulated the intergenerational differences in social identity of rural–urban migrants in China. Using survey data from Wuhan, China, the study tests three hypotheses on intergenerational differences in rural– urban migrants’ social identity based on first-generation and new-generation migrants’ attitudes toward rural and urban society. Results suggest that first-generation migrants are more likely to view themselves as rural rather than urban citizens. However, new-generation migrants tend to regard themselves as neither peasants nor urban citizens, which means that their identity reconstruction is at a stalled status. The identity perplexity of new-generation migrants suggests that they may be in danger of falling into the second-generation decline because there is a mismatch between their aspirations and the practical situation of their identity integration. This article highlights that when analyzing rural–urban migrants’ social identity, it is very important to consider the role of generation and rural–urban migrants’ attitudes toward their background society. Furthermore, the study suggests that in a rural–urban dichotomized society without institutional and social support, rural– urban migrants’ identity integration will not be achieved. Therefore, the Chinese government needs to build an institutionally and socially inclusive society. Keywords rural–urban migrant, identity, intergenerational difference, second-generation decline, China barrier to their urban integration (Fan, 2007; Li, 2006; Introduction Solinger, 1999; Zhan, 2011). Rural–urban migrants in China refer to rural laborers who The origins of institutional and social discrimination work in cities but retain a rural hukou status (household reg- against rural–urban migrants could be largely ascribed to the istration). They are the principal part of internal migrants in hukou system. This system was created in the 1950s, and it China. In recent years, the social integration (urban integra- was first implemented in urban areas, and then extended to tion) of rural–urban migrants has been an interest topic of rural areas (K. W. Chan & Zhang, 1999; F.-L. Wang, 2005). It many researchers (Y. Chen & Wang, 2015; Frenkel & Yu, aimed not only to control and monitor rural to urban migration 2014; W. W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Wong et al., 2007; Yue but also served multiple state interests, such as maintaining et al., 2013). There are many reasons for this. First, the mag- “unequal exchange” between the agricultural and industrial nitude of rural–urban migrants is very large. The number of sectors to boost the development of industry and securing cross-township rural–urban migrants has reached nearly 169 social and political stability (K. W. Chan & Zhang, 1999). F.- million in 2015 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, L. Wang (2005) suggested that the hukou system has both 2016). Second, rural–urban migrants are a significant com- positive and negative effects on the Chinese society: on one ponent contributing toward the Chinese economy. It has been estimated that they have contributed about 16% of GDP growth in China over the past decades (“Migrant Workers Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China Contribute 16% GDP Growth,” 2006). More specifically, Corresponding Author: approximately 30% of GDP in Beijing and 31% of GDP in Shenghua Xie, College of Public Administration, Central China Normal Shanghai in 2007 were attributed to them (Chang et al., University, Luoyu Road No. 152, Hongshan District, Wuhan 430079, 2009). Third, rural–urban migrants have suffered institu- China. tional and social discrimination in urban areas, which is a big Email: shenghua.xie@outlook.com Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open hand, it has helped the rapid economic development and polit- personal relationships which might influence the urban inte- ical order; on the other hand, it also has reinforced social strati- gration of rural–urban migrants (Y. Chen & Wang, 2015; Li, fication, exacerbated regional inequalities, and caused 2006; Solinger, 1999; W. W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Yang, 2013; institutional and social exclusion and discrimination. Yue et al., 2013). Others have also examined the conse- The negative effect of the hukou system is reflected by the quence of the urban integration of rural–urban migrants fact that this system closely links to the livelihoods and well- (Frenkel & Yu, 2014; Gui et al., 2012; Solinger, 1999). being of Chinese people. This is a particular characteristic Unfortunately, generational differences in the urban integra- before the relaxation of hukou control since the economic tion of rural–urban migrants have not been fully articulated reform in 1980s. For instance, the state once granted people in previous studies. Particularly, to the best of our knowl- with urban hukou free or subsidized food, housing, and edge, no study has compared the intergenerational differ- health care, but such benefits were not provided to people ences in the social identity of rural–urban migrants. with rural hukou (T. Cheng & Selden, 1994). In the era of Furthermore, because there is no precise definition or a con- hukou reform, the Chinese government gradually has eradi- sensus understanding of integration (Castles et al., 2002; cated the nationwide welfare system that secures all urban Pillemer, 2000), integration is a concept used by many but citizens. However, the welfare system in China has been fea- understood differently (Robinson, 1998). Hence, studies on tured by a noteworthy degree of decentralization. This leads the urban integration of rural–urban migrants always come to the fact that welfare benefits in cities are only elaborated to diverse conclusions. for the locally born urban citizens while still excluding out- Using survey data from Wuhan, China, this research siders, for example, rural–urban migrants (Smart & Lin, draws on social integration and social identity theories to test 2007; Smart & Smart, 2001). and compare the intergenerational differences in the social Since rural–urban migrants do not have urban hukou, they identity of rural–urban migrants. The reason focusing on are still not treated as equally as urban citizens and not only rural–urban migrants but excluding other internal included into the local welfare system. Consequently, they migrants such as urban-urban migrants is that the latter basi- cannot enjoy the same welfare entitlements as urban citizens. cally have little or no rural life experience. However, in this Except for the deprivation of welfare entitlements, rural– study, we regard rural identity as a very important compo- urban migrants are also in inferior status in the labor market. nent of identity negotiation. Thus, we only include rural– They are segmented from the urban labor market and cannot urban migrants in this study. be employed in many formal sectors, may suffer wage This study has two main contributions. First, it regards arrears, and may be experienced physical and psychological generation as a vital factor influencing the social identity of harassment (Z. Cheng et al., 2015; Fan, 2002). As such, rural–urban migrants and aims to test and compare the differ- Roberts (1997) argued that rural–urban migrants in China are ences of the social identity between first-generation and as that of undocumented immigrants from Mexico to the new-generation migrants. Employing intergenerational per- United States. They have received very limited policy sup- spective as a method to observe the social integration of port to integrate into the urban society. As a result, their live- migrants has been very pervasive in academia (Alba, 2005; lihoods and well-being in urban areas are worse than the Gans, 1992; Perlmann & Waldinger, 1997; Portes & Zhou, local residents. 1993; Zhou, 1997). The advantage of this perspective is that In light of the poor social protection for rural–urban it can provide more straightforward results on migrants’ migrants, during the past decades, the Chinese government social integration than alternative methods which just com- has been dedicating to reform the hukou system to fit the pare what have changed among migrants in different ages. increasingly urbanization process in China. Due to these Second, while existing studies have only examined rural– reforms, the role of hukou in determining people’s liveli- urban migrants’ attitudes toward the urban society, this arti- hoods and well-being has been declining (Zhan, 2011). This cle considers their attitudes toward both their background also has resulted in the consequence that the intention for society (rural society) and the host society (urban society). rural–urban migrants to converse their rural hukou to urban Because the hukou system divides the Chinese society into hukou has been relatively low (C. Chen & Fan, 2016). two separate parts, rural society and urban society (Whyte, However, hukou still plays a role in terms of housing secu- 2010), rural–urban migrants have both a rural sense and an rity, social assistance, and children’s education (Lan, 2014; urban sense of belonging. Examining both rural and urban Tao, 2008), especially in large cities like Beijing, Shanghai, identity of rural–urban migrants can give a more comprehen- Guangzhou, and Shenzhen (C. Chen & Fan, 2016). Therefore, sive understanding of their identity integration. As such, this in the case of unfair welfare rights in urban areas, rural– study sheds new light on understanding the trends and out- urban migrants still have to confront with the challenges of comes of identity negotiation of rural–urban migrants in an social integration in the future. urban society. Previous studies have paid close attention to macro-fac- The structure of this study is as follows. The “Literature tors such as institutions, social condition, and the environ- Review” section gives a brief literature review on theories of ment and micro-factors including income, education, and social integration, followed by an introduction to the Leng et al. 3 hypotheses of the article in section “Intergenerational the integration strategy have the best outcome of social adap- Differences in the Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants.” tation, immigrants who adopt the assimilation and separation Section “Data and Method” illustrates the research data and strategies have the suboptimal outcome, and those who adopt methods. Section “Results” presents the empirical findings, the marginalization strategy have the worst social adaptation and section “Discussion and Conclusion” covers the discus- outcome. sion and conclusion of the article. Except for the economic-based and culture-based mea- sures, the political integration of immigrants also has received attention among researchers (Jacobs & Tillie, 2004; Literature Review Tillie, 2004; Tillie & Slijper, 2006). Both individual-level Social integration refers to the process for immigrants factors, such as gender, ethnic membership, and social activi- becoming an accepted part of society (Penninx, 2005) as ties, and group-level factors, such as social capital in the eth- well as participating in a wide range of social relations nic community, are important factors influencing immigrants’ (Brissette et al., 2000). It is a multi-dimensional concept political integration to the host society (Tillie, 2004). In par- which includes acculturation, economic, political, and iden- ticular, the importance of social capital in determining the tity integration among others (Penninx, 2005; Yue et al., political integration of immigrants calls for more empirical 2013). Traditionally, assimilation is thought to be the only tests in various national settings (Jacobs & Tillie, 2004). outcome of the social integration of immigrants from devel- Furthermore, in recent years, a large set of studies have oping countries to developed countries. According to this utilized social identity as an indicator to measure the social theory, immigrants will gradually abandon their original integration of immigrants (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003; identity and will be assimilated into the mainstream of the Pfeifer et al., 2007; Snel et al., 2006). Social identity is host society (Gordon, 1964). However, empirical studies on defined as the degree of people categorizing themselves as the social integration of new generation of immigrants chal- which social groups they belong to (Hogg & Abrams, 1988; lenged the theory, as the new generation of immigrants often Schwartz et al., 2006; Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1986; has even worse consequences of social integration than older Turner, 1985). This concept has made a remarkable contribu- generations (Gans, 1992). To explain this, the segmented tion in explaining intergroup relations (Brown, 1999). assimilation theory and the bidirectional acculturation theory Upon entry into a new society, immigrants seek to were proposed. rebuild their identity. The outcome of this reconstruction is The segmented assimilation theory suggests that the determined by two groups of factors: attributes of immi- social integration of immigrant can be understood from two grants and responses of the host society (Colic-Peisker & dimensions: economic integration and acculturation (Portes Walker, 2003). Personal characteristics which may affect & Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997). Based on this approach, there immigrants’ identity rebuilding contain language, religious are three possible outcomes for the social integration of belief, ethnicity, human capital, and social capital (Colic- immigrants. Some immigrants integrate into the White mid- Peisker & Walker, 2003; Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). dle-class, but others are opposite to the first group and are Responses of the host society like official policies toward assimilated into the underclass. Still others integrate into the immigration might also influence the process of identity mainstream of the society only in economic dimension, but reconstruction (Phinney et al., 2001). In addition, as some they deliberately preserve their original culture (Portes & researchers suggested that individual factors and responses Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997). of the host society often interact with each other, this per- The bidirectional acculturation theory, however, distin- spective is often used to explore how two different levels of guishes the acculturation of immigrants based on their atti- factors act together in determining the identity reconstruc- tudes toward the culture of the original society and the tion of immigrants (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003; Phinney culture of the host society (Berry, 1997, 2005, 2008). et al., 2001). According to this perspective, immigrants’ acculturation has Some studies have also employed social identity as an four possible strategies: integration, separation, assimilation, indicator to explore the urban integration of rural–urban and marginalization. The integration strategy indicates that migrants in China (C. Wang, 2001; W. W. Wang & Fan, immigrants are not only willing to maintain their original 2012; Yuan et al., 2013). Unfortunately, these studies have culture but also accept the culture of the host society. The not paid attention to the intergenerational differences in separation strategy means that immigrants only wish to hold rural–urban migrants’ social identity. In addition, they have their original culture but reject the culture of the host society. only examined rural–urban migrants’ attitudes toward the The assimilation strategy asserts that immigrants wish to urban society but have neglected testing their attitudes abandon their original culture but accept the culture of the toward the rural society. Rural identity refers to the degree to receiving society. The marginalization strategy signifies that which rural–urban migrants identify themselves as rural resi- immigrants neither wish to hold their original culture nor dents, while urban identity refers to the degree to which accept the culture of the host society at the same time. rural–urban migrants identify themselves as urban residents. Moreover, Berry (1997) suggests that immigrants who adopt Examining the rural and urban identity of rural–urban 4 SAGE Open migrants within the same research framework can give a who were born after 1980. They include but are not limited more complete view of their identity integration. to children of first-generation migrants. Nevertheless, sec- Notably, although many theories regard identity as a core ond-generation migrants used in the western countries only dimension of social integration, it is still debatable whether refer to children of first-generation migrants. Therefore, the social identity can be used as an indicator to examine the terminology of new-generation of rural–urban migrants in social integration of migrants. For instance, while identity is China is a broader concept than the term used in western lit- viewed as a key dimension in the assimilation theory erature. However, we argue that it is reasonable to judge the (Gordon, 1964), in other theories such as segmented assimi- social integration of rural–urban migrants by comparing the lation and acculturation, immigrants may realize socioeco- differences in social identity among first-generation migrants nomic integration without changing their original identity. In and new-generation migrants given that the two generations this study, we do not intend to equate social identity with are so different regarding values and lifestyles. Such a cate- social integration. Instead, we argue that social identity can gorization is more in line with the social and economic situ- be employed as an indicator to reflect the social integration ation of China. of rural–urban migrants in urban China. Immigrants in indus- The underlying assumption of many studies is that new- trialized societies are often different from the natives in generation migrants are more likely to identify themselves as terms of religion, ethnicity, and cultures. However, this is not urban citizens rather than rural citizens. This assumption the case of rural–urban migrants in China. Rural–urban relates to the characteristics of new-generation migrants who migrants share many similarities with urban locals in these were born and raised in the political and economic reform aspects. On the contrary, they are in inferior conditions in period with better education and broader perspective (K. W. terms of job opportunities, social welfare rights, and civic Chan, 2012; C. Wang, 2001; X. Wang, 2008). They have lit- engagement in cities because they do not have an urban tle or no experience in farming and therefore have a stronger hukou status. Consequently, they are often viewed as the desire to live in the city permanently (C. Wang, 2001, 2010; “outsiders” of the city (Du et al., 2018). Therefore, to what X. Wang, 2008). They have few or no siblings and have a extent they view themselves as the “insiders” of the city can higher aspiration for social mobility (X. Wang, 2008). They be regarded as a good indicator to represent their social inte- also have lower endurance for long-time physical work and a gration in urban China. stronger proclivity for consumerism and individualism (K. W. Chan, 2010b; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, 2010; C. Wang, 2001, 2010). These characteristics are completely dif- Intergenerational Differences in the ferent from the traits of first-generation migrants. For them, Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants on the contrary, the aim of working in the city is mostly to In general, rural–urban migrants in China can be divided into earn money to support their families in the countryside; they two generations: first generation and new generation. There basically have little or no intention to stay in the city perma- are no criteria on how to divide first-generation and new- nently (Jacka, 2006; Pun, 2005; Pun & Lu, 2010). Due to generation migrants (Pun & Lu, 2010). In academia, new- these reasons, new-generation migrants are thought to iden- generation migrants refer to those who were born after 1980, tify themselves more as urban and less as rural citizens. raised up in either countryside or in cities, and registered as Likewise, first-generation migrants are reckoned to view temporary residents in the host cities. They include but are themselves as rural citizens and not as urban citizens. not limited to children of first-generation migrants (Y. Liu However, other studies on new-generation migrants have et al., 2012). Since 1980s’ China has implemented extensive provided a totally different story. The hukou system divides economic reforms, this has remarkably eliminated many China into a rural and urban dichotomized society in which potential barriers to economic development erected by rural–urban migrants are deprived of many social welfare socialist China (Pun, 2016). Therefore, rural–urban migrants entitlements and are regarded as second-class citizens (K. W. who were born after 1980 experienced totally different Chan, 2010b; Solinger, 1999; Wong et al., 2007). The con- social, economic, and political changes compared with those cept of “migrant worker” represents a quasi-identity status. who were born earlier. As a result, rural–urban migrants are For new-generation migrants, this status represents the often categorized into two generations based on the above unfinished process of proletarianization (Pun & Lu, 2010). time frame (Hao & Tang, 2015; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, Proletarianization refers to the phenomenon in western coun- 2010; Tang & Feng, 2015; X. Wang, 2008). Also, this catego- tries that with the urbanization and industrialization, the sur- rization reflects the change of rural–urban migrants’ percep- plus labor force in the countryside gradually transits into the tion of capital, the state, and their social position (Pun & Lu, urban working class. Moreover, those new urban middle- 2010). class citizens integrate into the urban society also in cultural, It is worth noting that the concept of new-generation political, and identity dimensions without experiencing great rural–urban migrants in China is different from the concept difficulties. However, the identity reconstruction of rural– of second-generation migrants in western countries. New- urban migrants in the process of urbanization and industrial- generation migrants in China refer to rural–urban migrants ization of China is at a stalled status. The quasi-identity Leng et al. 5 causes new-generation migrants to generate feelings of “hav- To recap, the hypotheses of the article can be formulated ing no future as a labor force in urban areas and no meaning as follows: to return to the village” (K. W. Chan, 2010b). The dilemma of identity reconstruction also leads to yielding anger, Hypothesis 1: First-generation migrants are more likely trauma, and feeling of profound unfairness (Pun & Lu, 2010). to adhere to the rural society than new-generation This desperation forces new-generation migrants to confront migrants, that is, they tend to view themselves as peasants with the identity problem of “who I am.” This kind of per- rather than urban citizens. plexity in identity further generates some extreme resistance, Hypothesis 2: New-generation migrants are more likely such as suicidal behavior and collective actions against the to adhere to the urban society than first-generation government (J. Chan & Pun, 2010; Pun & Lu, 2010). migrants, that is, they tend to identify themselves as urban Therefore, there is a competing hypothesis on the social citizens rather than peasants. identity of new-generation migrants. They may be in the con- dition of identity perplexity, which means they regard them- However, the social identity of new-generation migrants selves as neither urban nor rural citizens. If this were the case, may still be examined from another angle. In this case, since new-generation migrants may have even more difficulties in the experience of social and institutional exclusion in the the identity integration than the first-generation migrants urban society, they build their urban identity very slowly because they may be marginalized from the urban and rural just like first-generation migrants. Under this situation, they society simultaneously. Notably, this hypothesis is similar to may have identity perplexity. Thus, we posited the third the “second-generation decline” theory which is described as hypothesis: a mismatch of the aspirations of second-generation migrants and the real living conditions that they have (Gans, 1992; Hypothesis 3: Because of the barriers in the urban soci- Perlmann & Waldinger, 1997). This theory has been widely ety, the identity reconstruction of new-generation migrants used to examine the social integration of new-generation is at a stalled status. They tend to view themselves neither immigrants in developed countries (Alba, 2005; Waters, as peasants nor as urban citizens. 1994; Zhou, 1997). Notably, this study judges the “second- generation decline” by comparing the differences in social Data and Method identity between first-generation migrants and new-genera- tion migrants, which is different from previous studies that Data have focused on the socioeconomic conditions of migrants. The data utilized came from a survey in Wuhan, China. As described above, social identity is a good indicator to rep- Wuhan is the largest urban area in the central area of China. resent the social integration of rural–urban migrants in urban The land area of Wuhan is 8,494.41 km , with 13 urban dis- China. Thus, it is reasonable to use the terminology of “sec- tricts. The economy of Wuhan is quite robust. In 2013, the ond-generation decline” in the present study. GDP per capita of Wuhan was nearly 88,564 yuan (Wuhan Empirical studies have also revealed similar competing Bureau of Statistics, 2014). Because of these reasons, Wuhan is hypotheses. Some researchers have found that since the a very popular destination for rural–urban migrants. Figure 1 importance of hukou system has declined substantially shows the change of demographic structure of Wuhan from (Zhan, 2011), rural–urban migrants are gradually transition- 1980 to 2014. It shows that the number of migrant population ing into the urban middle class (Frenkel & Yu, 2014). By in Wuhan has been increasing since the economic reform in contrast, other researchers have suggested that because of the China in 1980s. Typically, after the global economic crisis in institutional and cultural exclusion associated with the hukou 2008, enormous factories moved from the eastern to central system in the urban society, rural–urban migrants are falling into the urban underclass (Solinger, 1999) and are becoming China, and Wuhan is a pervasive choice for the relocation of a marginalized group within the urban society (Wong et al., many factories. As a result, the migrant population in Wuhan 2007). According to the former perspective, rural–urban has increased substantially. In 2014, there are over 2 million migrants’ urban sense of belonging will accumulate with migrants (rural–urban migrants and urban–urban migrants) increasing time in the city because the economic integration in Wuhan, accounting for nearly 20% of its total population. will provide the foundation for rural–urban migrants to Wuhan is a special region to study the social identity of acquire a strong sense of urban belonging. Based on the latter rural–urban migrants for the reason that the proportion of perspective, rural–urban migrants’ identity negotiation will migrant population in Wuhan is about 20% which is different be stalled at a status no matter how long they stay in the city, from other megacities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and as the institutional and cultural exclusion of urban society Shenzhen where nearly half of the residents are migrants. In creates an invisible wall between rural–urban migrants and fact, investigating the social identity of rural–urban migrants urban citizens. Rural–urban migrants will never have a in a society which is dominated by local residents can mirror strong sense of urban belonging so long as the institutional the process of identity reconstruction of migrants better than and cultural restrictions exist. the evidence from those so called “migrant cities.” Currently, 6 SAGE Open China (Table 1). We assumed that our sample should be close to the industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants in the central area of China, because Wuhan is located in this region. We collected the data in several stages. First, we randomly selected five urban districts in Wuhan. Next, based on the industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants, we randomly chose firms based on a name list of firms located in the selected five urban districts. We chose 25 firms in total. Of those, 21 accepted our request to be surveyed. With the help 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Year of personnel management department, we then had face-to- Hukou population Resident population face interview on rural–urban migrants working in the Migrant population selected firms. However, for rural–urban migrants distrib- uted in wholesale and retail and other industries, most of them are self-employed, and thus not covered by the 21 Figure 1. Demographic structure of Wuhan city, 1980 to 2014. Source. Wuhan Statistical Yearbook (Wuhan Bureau of Statistics, 2014). selected firms. To balance the industrial distribution of rural– urban migrants in our sample, we also surveyed rural–urban migrants from wholesale and retail industry and other indus- these cities are struggling with the loss of local culture tries in the selected five urban districts as well. We randomly because of the influx of migrants. Therefore, on one hand, interviewed 104 and 88 migrants from these two sectors rural–urban migrants are assimilated into the mainstream of respectively. Besides, we controlled the quality of the survey the society in these cities; on the other hand, local residents by conducting a pilot study. In total, we issued 1,555 ques- of these cities are also significantly influenced by “migrant tionnaires. We collected 1,023 questionnaires back (response culture.” Instead, the process of identity rebuilding of rate 66%), and of these questionnaires, 909 are valid. Before migrants in Wuhan is more comparable to immigrants in data analysis, we first deleted invalid cases with missing val- western countries who mostly seek to integrate into the host ues in our sample, and got a sample with 835 cases. Since our society because local residents account for the vast majority. research focuses on rural–urban migrants, we also deleted Besides, previous studies on urban integration of rural–urban those migrants who have an urban hukou status (146 cases). migrants generally based on data from the eastern area of Finally, 689 questionnaires were analyzed. Table 1 shows the China (Y. Chen & Wang, 2015; Yang, 2013; Yue et al., 2013), industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants in our sample. while less attention has been paid to cities located in the cen- The percentage of rural–urban migrants in the above men- tral area of China, except for a few cases (W. W. Wang & tioned seven industries is 23.51%, 28.74%, 14.95%, 7.84%, Fan, 2012). This study can enrich evidence from this area. 7.26%, 8.27%, and 9.43% respectively. In the survey, we adopted the same definition as National Bureau of Statistics of China (2016) and defined rural–urban Measure migrants as those who hold a rural hukou status but live in cities for at least 6 months. One of the biggest difficulties to We used dependent variables as the rural identity and urban survey rural–urban migrants in China is that there is no pre- identity of rural–urban migrants. In previous studies, W. W. cise sampling frame. This is because many migrants are not Wang and Fan (2012) and Lin et al. (2016) used a binary registered in host cities’ population registration system. variable to measure rural–urban migrants’ self-identity, while Consequently, traditional sampling method based on the Yue et al. (2013) used a scale aggregating three observed population registration system often results in sample bias variables to measure it. In this study, we referred to the mea- (Kong, 2010). To cope with this issue, we determined the sures of these studies. We used an ordinal variable to mea- sampling frame by referring to the industrial distribution of sure both dependent variables. Rural identity was measured rural–urban migrants. The reason for this is that according to by asking respondents “taking it by and large, I think I am a the national survey report Investigation Report on Rural– rural resident.” Urban identity was measured by asking Urban Migrants 2013 (National Bureau of Statistics of respondents “taking it by and large, I think I am an urban China, 2014), rural–urban migrants are proportionally dis- resident.” For both responses, we used a 5-point Likert-type tributed in seven different industries. These industries scale: “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “so-so,” “agree,” and include the following: (a) construction, (b) manufacturing, “strongly agree.” (c) wholesale and retail, (d) accommodation and catering, (e) Generation, which is our key independent variable, is a transportation, warehousing and postal industry, (f) resident binary variable. In agreement with previous studies (Hao & services and other services, and (g) other industries. In addi- Tang, 2015; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, 2010; Tang & tion, the report distinguished the industrial distribution of Feng, 2015; X. Wang, 2008), we divided rural–urban rural–urban migrants in nationwide and different regions of migrants into two generations: first generation and new Number of population (million) 0 2 4 6 8 10 Leng et al. 7 Table 1. Distribution of Rural–Urban Migrants in Different Industries. Industry N % Central area Nationwide Construction industry 162 23.51 20.1 31.40 Manufacturing industry 198 28.74 28.5 22.20 Wholesale and retail industry 103 14.95 12.9 11.30 Accommodation and catering industry 54 7.84 6.2 5.90 Transportation, warehousing, and postal industry 50 7.26 7.3 6.30 Resident services and other services industry 57 8.27 11.1 10.60 Other industries 65 9.43 13.9 12.30 Total 689 100 100 100 generation. First-generation migrants are those who were migrants were measured by asking respondents “do you have born before 1980, and new-generation migrants are those often contact with local urban residents?” and “do you have who were born after 1980. In addition, we also controlled often contact with other rural–urban migrants?” Both rural–urban migrants’ demographic characteristics, length of responses include two options: “yes” and “no.” In addition, urban residence, socioeconomic traits, language proficiency, Fan (2011) suggested that how the family is split (e.g., single residential area, family tie, social tie with other rural–urban migrant, sole migrants, childless couple migrants, couple migrants, and social tie with local urban residents in data migrants, and family migrants) is a significant predictor of analysis. urban settlement of rural–urban migrants. Thus, we could Demographic characteristics include gender, place of predict that having family members in the city is positively birth, and marital status. Gender is a binary variable (0 = related to their urban identity. The family tie of rural–urban female, 1 = male). Place of birth was divided into two catego- migrants was measured with the question “do you live ries: city and countryside. Marital status was categorized into together with your family members in the working city?” married and unmarried. Length of urban residence was mea- The response is again binary (0 = no, 1 = yes). sured according to the years that rural–urban migrants have L. Liu et al. (2017) found that the residential segregation lived in the city (both Wuhan and other cities). We divided it tends to reinforce rural–urban migrants’ perceptions of social into three categories: less than 5 years, 5–10 years, and more exclusion, which is a big challenge on their social integra- than 10 years. tion. Therefore, we expect that there is a significant relation- Socioeconomic traits include educational attainment, ship between residential area and social identity of income, and occupation. Educational attainment of rural– rural–urban migrants. The variable to measure the residential urban migrants was measured by asking respondents “what area of rural–urban migrants was measured by asking them is your educational background?” Responses include four “what is the type of community that you living place is options: primary education or below, middle school educa- located?” Responses include three types: communities domi- tion, high school education, and university or above. Rural– nated by urban residents, mixed areas, and migrant enclaves. urban migrants’ income was measured by asking them “how much is your monthly income?” We categorized it into three Methods levels: below 2000 yuan, 2000 to 5,000 yuan, and above 5,000 yuan. Occupation of rural–urban migrants was mea- The baseline model in this study is ordered logistic regres- sured with the question “what is your job?” Following the sion. However, this model has the proportional odds assump- categorization method of Wu and Treiman (2007), we tion that the coefficients are the same for each value of divided it into five types: professionals and managers, rou- dependent variable, which is often violated (Williams, 2006). tine non-manual workers, small property owners, foreman To resolve this issue, some improved models, such as the and skilled workers, and semi and unskilled workers. heterogeneous choice model and generalized ordered logistic Language is an important determinant of the reconstruc- model, were proposed (Williams, 2006, 2009, 2010). Since tion of migrants’ identity (Colic-Peisker & Walker, 2003; Williams (2010) suggested that the heterogeneous choice Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). In this research, the lan- model is a more attractive alternative to the generalized guage skill of rural–urban migrants was measured by asking ordered logistic model for its simplicity, we used this model them whether they can fluently speak mandarin and Wuhan in this study. This model is expressed as follows: local dialect. Both responses are binary variables (0 = poor,   xk β − ik km 1 = fluent). ∑   Py > m = invlogit , () (1) Social ties have been identified as significant factors of     the social integration of rural–urban migrants (Haug, 2008; mM =− 12 ,,,, 1 Yue et al., 2013). In this study, the social ties of rural–urban 8 SAGE Open where x is a vector of k values for the ith observation. The xs Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Independent Variables. are the determinants of the dependent variable y which has m Variables % categories. β is a vector of coefficients. σ is a parameter which indicates how the underlying latent variable is scaled Gender Male 68.51 for each case, which can be expressed as follows: Female 31.49   Generation   (2) σγ = exp, z i ij j First generation 49.78     New generation 50.22 where the zs are groups with different error variances in the Place of birth underlying variable, and the γs represent how the zs affect the Countryside 98.40 variance. City 1.60 Marital status We used Stata 14.0 to conduct data analysis. After per- Married 71.84 forming the basic model, the brant test was employed to Unmarried 28.16 identify what variables violate the proportional odds assump- Length of urban residence (years) tion. Then, the hetero option is utilized in the heterogeneous <5 69.96 choice model to adjust variables identified to break the pro- 5–10 20.03 portional odds assumption. As we collected data based on the >10 10.01 industrial distribution of rural–urban migrants, when con- Educational attainment ducting data analysis, we also controlled the fixed effects of Primary school or below 20.75 industries in regression models. Junior high school 43.40 Senior high school 24.53 Results University or above 11.32 Income (yuan per month) Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of independent vari- <2,000 16.26 ables. The percentage of male rural–urban migrants is 2,000–5,000 74.17 68.51%; the proportion of first-generation migrants is about >5,000 9.58 50%; nearly 98% of rural–urban migrants were born in the Occupation countryside; 28.16% of rural–urban migrants are unmarried. Professionals and managers 6.97 More than 62% of rural–urban migrants live with their fam- Routine non-manual workers 11.32 ily members in urban areas. As for the length of urban resi- Small property owners 19.59 dence, nearly 70% of rural–urban migrants have less than 5 Foreman and skilled workers 40.49 years, 20% of them have 5 to 10 years, and 10% of them have Semi and unskilled workers 21.63 more than 10 years of urban residence. The majority of rural– Residential area urban migrants have junior high school or senior high school Communities dominated by urban residents 15.38 Mixed areas 38.17 education, and only about 11% have university or above edu- Migrant enclaves 46.44 cation. About 74% of rural–urban migrants’ income is in the Social tie with urban residents range from 2000 to 5,000 yuan per month. The percentages Yes 18.72 of professionals and managers, routine non-manual workers, No 81.28 small property owners, foreman and skilled workers, and Social tie with rural–urban migrants semi and unskilled workers are 6.97%, 11.32%, 19.59%, Yes 52.10 40.49%, and 21.63%, respectively. Most rural–urban No 47.90 migrants live in migrant enclaves (46%), followed by mixed Family tie areas (38%) and communities dominated by urban residents Yes 62.12 (15%). Only a small proportion of them have often contact No 37.88 with urban residents (19%), but about half have often contact Mandarin proficiency with other rural–urban migrants (52%). As for their language Fluent 85.20 skills, nearly 85% expressed that they can speak fluent man- Poor 14.80 darin. On the contrary, only 13% stated that they can speak Dialect proficiency fluently the Wuhan local dialect. Fluent 86.79 Figure 2 shows that both first-generation and new-gener- Poor 13.21 ation migrants have prominent differences in rural identity. More first-generation migrants tend to view themselves as rural citizens rather than new-generation migrants; 72% of rural residents, but only 17% of them disagree or strongly first-generation migrants agree or strongly agree that they are disagree that they are rural residents. On the contrary, only Leng et al. 9 Figure 2. Distribution of rural identity of first-generation and new-generation migrants. Figure 3. Distribution of urban identity of first-generation and new-generation migrants. 30% of new-generation migrants agree or strongly agree that urban residents are 73% and 62%, respectively. This result they are rural residents, and 25% are in an indeterminate means that both first-generation and new-generation migrants state. Yet, as many as 44% disagree or strongly disagree that have a very weak sense of urban identity. Fan (2002) also they are rural residents. suggested that rural–urban migrants tend to identify them- In contrast, the urban identity of first-generation and new- selves as outsiders of cities. generation migrants shows no big differences. Figure 3 Table 3 presents the association between generation and shows that the percentages of first-generation and new-gen- characteristics of rural–urban migrants based on the chi- eration migrants who agree or strongly agree that they are square test. The results suggest that first-generation urban residents are 11% and 14%, respectively. On the con- migrants and new-generation migrants have significant dif- trary, the proportions of first-generation and new-generation ferences in marital status, place of birth, length of urban migrants who disagree or strongly disagree that they are residence, educational attainment, occupational status, 10 SAGE Open Table 3. Chi-Square Test on the Association Between Generation and First-Generation and New-Generation Migrants’ Characteristics. Variables First generation (%) New generation (%) χ Gender 3.27 Male 71.72 65.32 Female 28.28 34.68 Place of birth 7.40** City 0.29 2.89 Countryside 99.71 97.11 Marital status 215.13*** Married 97.08 46.82 Unmarried 2.92 53.18 Length of urban residence (years) 42.23*** <5 59.48 80.35 5–10 24.49 15.61 >10 16.03 4.05 Educational attainment 203.41*** Primary school and below 38.48 3.18 Junior high school 47.52 39.31 Senior high school 12.24 36.71 University or above 1.75 20.81 Income (yuan per month) 3.95 <2,000 14.87 17.63 2,000–5,000 73.47 74.86 >5,000 11.66 7.51 Occupation 52.26*** Professionals and managers 5.25 8.67 Routine non-manual workers 6.12 16.47 Small property owners 23.62 15.61 Foreman and skilled workers 34.99 45.95 Semi and unskilled workers 30.03 13.29 Residential area 43.62*** Communities dominated by urban residents 13.12 17.63 Mixed areas 27.99 48.27 Migrant enclaves 58.89 34.10 Social tie with urban residents 0.19 Yes 18.08 19.36 No 81.92 80.64 Social tie with rural–urban migrants 28.96*** Yes 62.39 41.91 No 37.61 58.09 Family tie in the city 0.23 Yes 61.22 63.01 No 38.78 36.99 Mandarin proficiency 18.82*** Fluent 79.30 91.04 Poor 20.70 8.96 Dialect proficiency 0.09 Fluent 12.83 13.58 Poor 87.17 86.42 **p < .01. ***p < .001. residential area, social tie with rural–urban migrants, and The disparities in marital status and length of urban resi- mandarin proficiency (p < .05). Nevertheless, there are no dence are more or less related to the age gap between two significant differences shown in gender, income, family tie, generations of rural–urban migrants. The significant higher social tie with urban residents, and dialect proficiency proportion of new-generation migrants who were born in the among them (p > .05). city reflects that their childhood experience is different from Leng et al. 11 the first-generation migrants. The divergences in educational are not significantly related to rural identity. Considering that attainment and mandarin proficiency mean that first-genera- rural–urban migrants usually have more connections with tion and new-generation migrants have great differences in other migrants than local urban citizens, the relationship personal traits. Other studies have also revealed that new- between social ties with rural–urban migrants and rural iden- generation migrants have better education than first-genera- tity means that frequent social contact with one social group tion migrants (C. Wang, 2001; X. Wang, 2008). In addition, may result in an “ingroup” categorization. While mandarin the distinctions in occupational status, residential area, and proficiency is negatively associated with rural–urban social tie with other rural–urban migrants mirror that differ- migrants’ rural identity, Wuhan dialect proficiency shows no ent generations of rural–urban migrants have distinctive significant relation to it. This result suggests that mandarin preferences in jobs, living environments, and social rela- proficiency is more important than knowing a dialect in tions. This result is in agreement with the finding that new- rebuilding rural–urban migrants’ rural identity. Finally, fam- generation migrants prefer non-manual jobs and the urban ily social ties are not significantly related to rural identity. lifestyle to manual jobs and the rural lifestyle (K. W. Chan, Table 5 shows the results of the heterogeneous choice 2010b; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, 2010; C. Wang, 2001, model on the urban identity of rural–urban migrants. The 2010). The diversities in personal traits and preferences may brant test shows that residential area, mandarin proficiency, explain why first-generation and new-generation migrants and social ties with urban residents break the parallel-lines exhibit very different attitudes toward rural social identity. assumption of the ordered logistic model. Thus, we used the Nonetheless, the insignificant discrepancy in income reflects hetero option to adjust these variables in the heterogeneous that new-generation migrants do not have significant upward choice model. The results indicate that the coefficient of gen- social mobility compared with first-generation migrants. eration is not statistically significant, which indicates that the Also, the insignificant difference in family tie, social tie with second hypothesis of this study that new-generation migrants urban residents, and dialect proficiency embodies that new- are more likely to view themselves as urban citizens is generation migrants do not necessarily have better social rejected by our data. In other words, the two different genera- capital than first-generation migrants in an urban society. tions of rural–urban migrants show no significant difference This may reveal why rural–urban migrants have a weak in urban identity. This is consistent with what is reflected by sense of urban belonging. Figure 3 that they all have a weak sense of urban belonging. Table 4 reports the results of the heterogeneous choice Among demographic factors, the results suggest that model on the rural identity of rural–urban migrants. The males are less likely to view themselves as urban citizens brant test shows that residential area, occupational status, than females, which is opposite to the positive correlation marital status, and educational attainments break the assump- between gender and rural identity. Marital status and place of tion of the ordered logistic model. Therefore, we adjusted birth show no significant relation to rural–urban migrants’ these variables in the heterogeneous choice model by using urban identity. Some studies suggested that the duration of the hetero option. After controlling for other covariates, the urban stay is not related to rural–urban migrants’ urban iden- coefficient of generation is −0.81 and statistically signifi- tity (W. W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Yue et al., 2013). Our study cant. This means that new-generation migrants are less likely also shows the same result. than first-generation migrants to view themselves as rural Regarding socioeconomic factors, education comes statis- people. Therefore, we cannot reject our first hypothesis that tically insignificant. This is in line with other studies which first-generation migrants have a stronger sense of rural suggest that education is not significantly associated with identity. rural–urban migrants’ sense of urban belonging (Yue et al., Among demographic factors, unmarried status is nega- 2013). Income is only weakly correlated to the urban identity tively associated with rural–urban migrants’ rural identity. (p < .1), that is, rural–urban migrants with a monthly income However, being male and being urban born are not signifi- above 5,000 yuan are more likely to view themselves as urban cantly related to it. As for socioeconomic factors, having uni- citizens. W. W. Wang and Fan (2012) also reported that versity or above education is negatively related to rural income only marginally influences the urban identity integra- identity. This is also the case of the relationship between tion of rural–urban migrants. Occupational status, however, income and rural identity. On the contrary, occupational sta- exhibits a significantly positive association with urban iden- tus is not significantly associated with it. tity. Compared with semi-skilled and unskilled workers, pro- Residential area only shows no significant association fessionals and managers, small property owners, and foreman with rural identity. That is, compared with those who live in and skilled workers are more likely to regard themselves as migrant enclaves, rural–urban migrants live in the mixed urban citizens. This result indicates that the significant role of communities and communities dominated by urban residents occupational status, as an indicator of social mobility, is shap- show no significant difference in rural identity. Furthermore, ing rural–urban migrants’ urban identity. those rural–urban migrants who have social tie with other Residential area is not significantly related to the urban rural–urban migrants tend to more likely to view themselves identity of rural–urban migrants. However, the lnsigma as rural people. However, social ties with local urban citizens parameterization shows that rural–urban migrants who live 12 SAGE Open Table 4. Generalized Ordered Logistic Regression Results on the Rural Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants. Variables Coefficients SE Beta Generation (ref: first generation) −0.810*** 0.247 Gender (ref: female) 0.542** 0.190 Place of birth (ref: city) −0.065 0.751 Marital status (ref: married) −0.682** 0.245 Educational attainment (ref: primary school or below) Junior high school −0.576** 0.215 Senior high school −0.691* 0.275 University or above −1.584*** 0.477 Income (ref: <2,000 yuan per month) 2,000–5,000 −0.231 0.209 >5,000 −0.540 0.335 Occupation (ref: professionals and managers) Routine non-manual workers 0.069 0.325 Small property owners 0.004 0.284 Foreman and skilled workers −0.002 0.237 Semi and unskilled workers −0.098 0.187 Residential area (ref: migrant enclaves) Communities dominated by urban residents −0.465 0.263 Mixed areas −0.013 0.167 Length of urban residence (ref: <5 years) 5–10 −0.351 0.196 >10 −0.248 0.196 Social ties with urban residents (ref: no) −0.116 0.197 Social ties with rural–urban migrants (ref: no) 0.449* 0.186 Family tie in the city (ref: no) 0.158 0.160 Mandarin proficiency (ref: poor) −0.562* 0.225 Dialect proficiency (ref: poor) −0.109 0.218 lnsigma Marital status 0.113 0.102 Educational attainment 0.050 0.054 Occupation −0.035 0.037 Residential area −0.010 0.058 Log likelihood −951.42 LR χ 228.83 Probability > χ 0.000 Pseudo R .11 Note. Wald’s test of parallel-lines assumption for the final model indicates that the final model does not violate the proportional odds/parallel-lines assumption (p > .05). SE = standard error; LR = likelihood-ratio. p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in communities dominated by urban residents have more het- parameterization indicates that the variation of identity pat- erogeneous identity patterns than those who live in the terns is smaller among those who cannot fluently speak man- migrant enclaves. In other words, unmeasured variables darin. In line with W. W. Wang and Fan’s (2012) study, affecting identity integration of rural–urban migrants may be rural–urban migrants who are good at Wuhan dialect tend to more important for those who live in communities domi- view themselves as urban citizens. This result is consistent nated by urban residents than those who live in the migrant with previous studies that local language plays a significant enclaves. This is not a surprise because rural–urban migrants role in identity integration of migrants (Colic-Peisker & live in better communities have more chances to contact with Walker, 2003; Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). Notably, local residents. Therefore, it will be easier for some of them although social ties with other migrants display no signifi- to integrate into the host society. cant association with urban identity, social ties with urban Mandarin proficiency is only weakly related to rural– local citizens show a significant positive relation with it. This lnsigma urban migrants’ urban identity (p < .1), but the result indicates the importance of social networks with local Leng et al. 13 Table 5. Generalized Ordered Logistic Regression Results on the Urban Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants. Variables Coefficients SE Beta Generation (ref: first generation) 0.149 0.142 Gender (ref: female) −0.377** 0.129 Place of birth (ref: city) −0.622 0.444 Marital status (ref: married) 0.078 0.146 Educational attainment (ref: primary school or below) Junior high school 0.155 0.152 Senior high school 0.045 0.180 University or above 0.048 0.227 Income (ref: <2000 yuan per month) 2,000–5,000 0.177 0.145 >5,000 0.416 0.231 Occupation (ref: professionals and managers) Routine non-manual workers 0.749** 0.255 Small property owners 0.677** 0.228 Foreman and skilled workers 0.797*** 0.216 Semi and unskilled workers 0.223 0.145 Residential area (ref: migrant enclaves) Communities dominated by urban residents 0.031 0.181 Mixed areas −0.181 0.126 Length of urban residence (ref: <5 years) 5–10 0.213 0.136 >10 0.225 0.202 Social ties with urban residents (ref: no) 0.374* 0.163 Social ties with rural–urban migrants (ref: no) 0.023 0.108 Family tie in the city (ref: no) 0.324 0.124 Mandarin proficiency (ref: poor) 0.340 0.178 Dialect proficiency (ref: poor) 0.473** 0.181 lnsigma Residential area (ref: migrant enclaves) −0.071 0.055 Social ties with urban residents 0.257* 0.102 Mandarin proficiency −0.279* 0.123 Log likelihood −843.50 LR χ 111.39 Probability > χ 0.000 Pseudo R .06 Note. Wald’s test of parallel-lines assumption for the final model indicates that the final model does not violate the proportional odds/parallel-lines assumption (p > .05). SE = standard error; LR = likelihood-ratio. p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. people for rural–urban migrants’ identity integration in the vital variable, has not received enough attention when ana- urban society. In addition, those who live with family mem- lyzing factors influencing the social identity of rural–urban bers are more likely to view themselves as urban citizens, migrants in China. Moreover, previous studies have not which suggests that the family network is also very crucial taken into consideration of their attitudes toward rural soci- for the identity integration of rural–urban migrants in an ety. Based on the survey data from Wuhan, we compared and urban society. This result is in line with the trend that more tested the intergenerational differences in the social identity and more migrants choose the pattern of family migration of rural–urban migrants. and settle down in cities permanently. The study supports our first hypothesis that first-genera- tion migrants have a strong sense of rural identity. They are more likely to identify themselves as peasants rather than Discussion and Conclusion urban citizens. In our data, a large proportion of first-genera- Social identity is an important indicator in evaluating the tion migrants agreed that they are rural citizens and disagree social integration of migrants. However, generation, as a that they are urban citizens. Instead of supporting the second 14 SAGE Open hypothesis, our study supports the third hypothesis that new- between them and urban locals hinder them to permanently generation migrants’ social identity reconstruction is at a reside in cities. Therefore, although many new-generation stalled status. That is, they identify themselves as neither migrants do wish to settle in cities, they may be not able to rural nor urban people. Therefore, our study indicates that realize the intention because of the social discrimination. there are significant intergenerational differences in the That is why they do not view themselves as urban residents. social identity of rural–urban migrants. As a result, there is a gap between their aspirations and the Our results complement potential shortcomings of previ- reality. Without radical reform the social and institutional ous studies which have not considered the role of generation constraints in the city, the mismatch between their aspira- and rural–urban migrants’ attitudes toward rural society (W. tions and the practical situation of their identity integration W. Wang & Fan, 2012; Yuan et al., 2013). The original cul- will continue. Consequently, new-generation migrants are in ture of immigrants is emphasized both in the segmented danger of falling into the second-generation decline. assimilation theory (Portes & Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997) and What factors cause rural–urban migrants in China to face the acculturation theory (Berry, 1997, 2005, 2008). Likewise, the risk of falling into the second-generation decline? our study also suggests that rural–urban migrants’ attitudes Theoretically, every country in the process of industrializa- toward their background society cannot be neglected in the tion and urbanization is accompanied with internal popula- theoretical framework when analyzing their social identity. tion mobility from the less to more developed areas. Some However, the present study is different from the segmented classic theories, such as the making of working class assimilation theory and the acculturation theory because the (Thompson, 1963) and labor force supply (Lewis, 1954), latter two theories are based on studies on international hold that with the industrialization and urbanization of a migrants. As Yang (2013) reports, our research also indicates country, the labor force will gradually move from the coun- that the identity integration of rural–urban migrants in differ- tryside to urban areas, forming an urban working middle ent generations is not a linear pattern. New-generation class. However, none of these theories predicted that the new migrants have a significant weaker sense of rural identity urban middle class will be confronted with difficulties of than first-generation migrants, while they show no signifi- identity reconstruction. In this sense, our study challenges cant stronger sense of urban identity than first-generation these theories. It provides evidence showing that under some migrants. In other words, they tend to view themselves as specific social contexts, even if internal migrants in a coun- neither rural residents nor urban residents. Therefore, their try can successfully integrate into an urban society economi- identity negotiation is at a stalled status. cally, their identity integration is not unproblematic. Our results are consistent with existing studies where Therefore, under various circumstances, rural–urban first-generation migrants show a strong sense of rural but a migrants’ identity rebuilding might have different possibili- weak sense of urban identity (Jacka, 2006; Pun, 2005; Pun & ties. Phinney et al. (2001) suggests that when personal char- Lu, 2010). This result is in line with the characteristics of acteristics of immigrants interact with external factors of the first-generation migrants who have less desire to perma- host society such as policies and social values, they may nently stay in the city than new-generation migrants (Tang & have different patterns of identity negotiation. This argument Feng, 2015). In addition, there are strong pulling forces to may hint why rural–urban migrants face the risk of falling maintain their rural identity such as family bonds and social into the second-generation decline. Although new-genera- networks in the countryside. For instance, W. W. Wang and tion migrants tend to become urban citizens, the construction Fan (2006) highlighted family obligations as important fac- of their urban identity is at a stalled status. Except for the tors for rural–urban migrants to return to hometown. obstructive factors such as occupational segmentation, lan- Nonetheless, the stalled identity negotiation of new-genera- guage barriers, and residential areas, we should notice that tion migrants means that although they express strong desires the hukou system is a prominent barrier to their identity inte- to permanently reside in cities rather than stay in the country- gration. In fact, the hukou system is a significant factor which side, they are confronted with substantial difficulties to over- causes cultural exclusion, labor market segmentation, social come the social and institutional constrains which hinder welfare exclusion, as well as social discrimination (K. W. their urban integration. Chan, 2009, 2010a, 2010b; Fan, 2002; Wong et al., 2007). The stalled identity negotiation suggests that new-genera- Such exclusions considerably reduce their opportunities to tion migrants may be in danger of falling into the second- acquire decent or well-paid jobs, prohibiting their upward generation decline because there is a mismatch between their social mobility, and leading them to be a marginalized group aspirations and the practical situation of their identity inte- in the urban society (Fan, 2002; Wong et al., 2007; Wu & gration. Specifically, new-generation migrants do not wish to Treiman, 2007). Therefore, we argue that it is the interaction live in the countryside because they are used to the lifestyle between obstructive factors at the individual level and the of the city (K. W. Chan, 2010b; Y. Liu et al., 2012; Pun & Lu, hukou system at a higher level that causes the identity nego- 2010; C. Wang, 2001, 2010; X. Wang, 2008). That is why tiation of new-generation stalled. they do not view themselves as rural residents. However, the Despite the fact that the Chinese government has pledged unequal job opportunities, welfare rights, and citizenship to reform the hukou system, the role of the hukou system in Leng et al. 15 influencing rural–urban migrants’ urban identity indicates estimation results. Instead, this study demonstrates the dif- that it has become a kind of institutional symbol in Chinese ferences in the social identity between first-generation and society. Customarily, people tend to utilize the hukou system new-generation migrants. It may contribute to further under- to categorize others as insiders or outsiders of urban society. standing of their identity negotiation. Our future task is to That is why many researchers identify the hukou system as a expand this study and focus on exploring evidence from a significant factor which leads to identity discrimination national representative survey. against rural–urban migrants (Afridi et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2014). To some extent, abolishing the hukou system is Declaration of Conflicting Interests just one step to improve their identity integration. How to The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect radically remove the institutional legacy of the hukou system to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. is probably an even tougher task to deal with in the future. The emergence of the second-generation decline in terms Funding of identity integration challenges the viewpoint that rural– The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support urban migrants will automatically integrate into the urban for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This society with generational replacement during the process of study was financially supported by the Humanities and Social industrialization and urbanization of China. This phenome- Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (MOE; non indicates that in a rural–urban dichotomized society, Grant No. 19YJC840049) and self-determined research funds of CCNU from the colleges’ basic research and operation of MOE without institutional support, although rural–urban migrants (Grant Nos CCNU19TD005 and CCNU19A03009). may integrate into the urban society economically, they may never achieve identity integration. Therefore, we argue that ORCID iD the identity integration of rural–urban migrants in China is not the necessary result of the industrialization and urbaniza- Shenghua Xie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1222-8921 tion of China, and the institutional support also plays an important role as other factors like the socioeconomic fac- Notes tors. Thus, our research suggests that the Chinese govern- 1. The hukou records Chinese people’s personal information ment should reform the hukou system and eradicate its such as name, parents, ethnicity, data of birth, and political institutional legacy. This policy package is very important in affiliation, among others. It also significantly affects Chinese creating an institutionally and socially inclusive society and people’s social welfare entitlements such as education and prevents rural–urban migrants from falling into the second- medical service. More information on the hukou system has been documented in considerable literature (K. W. Chan, 2009, generation decline. 2010a, 2010b). To conclude, this study has three main contributions. 2. In Wu and Treiman’s (2007) study, they divided occupations into First, it is very important to pay attention to the role of gen- six categories: professionals and managers, routine non-manual eration when analyzing the social integration of rural–urban workers, small property owners, foreman and skilled workers, migrants. Second, while previous studies on social identity semi and unskilled workers, and farmers. In our study, we did of rural–urban migrants neglect the importance of migrants’ not regard farmer as an occupation of rural–urban migrants. attitudes toward original society, this study indicates that Therefore, the occupation of them was divided into five catego- when analyzing rural–urban migrants’ social identity, of ries in our study. Besides, in this study, small property owners great significance is to consider the influence of rural–urban refer to those who operate small business with a small number migrants’ attitudes toward their background society. Third, of employees (less than eight) or without employees. this study suggests that in a rural–urban dichotomized soci- 3. Other rural–urban migrants refer to those either from the same place, for example, the same village or counties, or rural– ety without institutional and social support, it is very difficult urban migrants from other places, for instance, other villages for rural–urban migrants to achieve social integration. or counties. Therefore, the Chinese government needs to build an institu- tionally and socially inclusive society. References This study also has several limitations. First, the data are Afridi, F., Li, S. X., & Ren, Y. (2015). Social identity and inequal- only collected in one inland city of China, which has a sig- ity: The impact of China’s hukou system. Journal of Public nificant regional characteristic. Hence, we should be careful Economics, 123, 17–29. to generalize the conclusions of this study. Second, the iden- Alba, R. (2005). 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Published: Jul 8, 2020

Keywords: rural–urban migrant; identity; intergenerational difference; second-generation decline; China

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Falling Into the Second-Generation Decline? Evidence From the Intergenerational Differences in Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

Falling Into the Second-Generation Decline? Evidence From the Intergenerational Differences in Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

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Falling Into the Second-Generation Decline? Evidence From the Intergenerational Differences in Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

Falling Into the Second-Generation Decline? Evidence From the Intergenerational Differences in Social Identity of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

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