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4. Funded Research Projects

4.26 The effect of landholdings on the mobility and wellbeing
of rural migrants in urban China (on-going project)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Hao Pu

Research Assistant Professor, Mobility and
Urbanisation Working Group of LEWI
Source of Funding: The 2016 Lincoln Institute China Program

International Fellowship
Amount Awarded: USD31,000

Brief Introduction:

The mobilisation of human resources from the countryside has propelled China’s

economic boom and urban explosion. Most of the rural people who have
migrated to cities still retain their rural landholdings, and this tends to play a

decisive role in determining their geographic and socioeconomic mobility. This
research will explicitly unravel the effect of landholdings on multiple aspects of

migrants’ lives, from decisions to migrate and to destination choice, and from job
market participation to settlement intention in the city. It is hypothesised that the
availability, type, quantity and location of rural landholdings exert differential

influences on the decisions of rural migrants and their consequential life chances.
Opportunities and concerns derived from rural landholdings, in turn, influence

how rural migrants assess and treat their landholdings. The decision determines
how rural land, which is currently collectively owned by rural citizens, is managed

and used in the future.

HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY | David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies 52