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The effect of haze pollution on rural-to-urban migrants’ long-term residence intentions

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Abstract

Severe haze pollution in China threatens human health, and its negative effect hampers rural-to-urban migrants’ settlement intentions in destination cities. Using the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey Data (CMDS), the satellite data of PM2.5, and city-level data, this study investigates the impact of haze pollution on rural migrants, long-term residence intentions in Chinese context with IV-probit model, and mediating effect model. Overall, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between the level of haze pollutants and rural migrants’ long-term settlement intentions. Robustness check using multi-measures and thermal inversion as the instrumental variable supports this conclusion. The mediating effect model shows haze pollution plays its role through two opposite mechanisms: signal effect and health effect. When the size of signal effect is larger than health effect, rural migrants are inclined to settle down in their host cities; otherwise, they show lower settlement willingness. The turning point appears when PM2.5 concentration reaches 38.5 μg/m3; migrants have the highest long-term residence intentions. Currently, the national average PM2.5 concentration is 40.98 μg/m3, indicating that China is at the stage where the health effect of haze pollution holds a dominant position. Haze pollution has heterogeneous impacts on migrants’ residence intentions. From the individual level, the younger generation, female, and higher-educated migrants have a higher tolerance for polluted air. From the city level, migrants who work in the city with 5 to 10 million dwellers have the highest long-term residence intention and are less sensitive to haze pollution. Thus, we propose stringent environmental regulations and more inclined public service policies to migrants.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Planning Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 20YJA790020), Tsinghua Rural Studies Ph.D. Scholarship (Grant No. 202108), and 2023 Self-funded Ethnic Research Project of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People's Republic of China (Grant No. 2023-GMD-057).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Huzhou College, Huzhou, 313000, China

    Qingjun Zhao

  2. Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing, 210014, China

    Yue Wang

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  1. Qingjun Zhao
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Qingjun Zhao: conceptualization, methodology, software, visualization, writing – original draft, funding acquisition. Yue Wang: conceptualization, methodology, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing.

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Correspondence to Yue Wang.

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Appendix A

Appendix A

Tables 6 and 7

Table 6 Regression results with mediators: KHB method
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Table 7 Heterogeneous effect of haze pollution
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Zhao, Q., Wang, Y. The effect of haze pollution on rural-to-urban migrants’ long-term residence intentions. Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 5896–5911 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-31557-7

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