Migration for Better Jobs or Better Living: Shifts in China.

Traditionally, studies of mobility follow two main strands: migration driven by better jobs and by better living. However, the interactions and shifts between them are rarely addressed. In the largest-scale domestic migration, millions of Chinese movers have experienced changes in migration motivations in the past ten years. Starting with migration patterns, we attempt to explore the interaction and changes in migration motivations in a dynamic way and relate them to the evolution of socio-economic contexts. Based on the latest two population censuses (2010 and 2020) in mainland China, we built an empirical model attributing migration motivations to job and living conditions, and then estimated the model by ordinary least squares (OLS) and quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) methods. The results reveal that employment is the primary and fundamental factor, though its impact is weakening. Good living is becoming significantly influential in migration willingness, and there is an interactive effect between the factors of job and living. Furthermore, we offer an explanation of the motivation evolution as being migrants' response to socio-economic status to maximize their utility. This study contributes to the migration literature from a longitudinal lens, and appeals to a continuous focus on migration evolution in the scientific research on population geography.

An integrative method for analyzing spatial accessibility in the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system in China.

Spatial accessibility to medical services (SAMS) is one of the most important indicators to examine the convenience for people to get access to medical services. In China, the difficulty in getting access to medical services is a commonly appreciated social problem. To mitigate this problem, Chinese government established the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system (HDTS) in 2005. However, there is no existing study to examine the HDTS from the perspective of SAMS. This paper therefore introduces an integrative method to analyze SAMS in adopting HDTS. The introduced integrative method is developed by referring to the existing 2SFCA method, a commonly applied method for analyzing SAMS, and the characteristics of HDTS are taken into consideration. The application of the integrative method is demonstrated with reference to a Chongqing case. The research findings suggest that: 1) A new method to evaluate SAMS in the context of HDTS is needed; 2) The integrative method developed in this study is proven effective for analyzing SAMS in the context of HDTS through the case study; 3) The case results reveal that the implementation of HDTS can significantly improve the overall SAMS performance in Chongqing; 4) The desirable referral rate of HDTS is 1.24% in the case study by comparing the SAMS performance between different referral rates.

A load-carrier perspective examination on the change of ecological environment carrying capacity during urbanization process in China.

Urbanization has prompted a dramatic social and economic development during the past decades in China. As a long-term national strategy, urbanization can only be implemented effectively with sufficient and sustainable ecological environment resources. By appreciating that the ecological environment carrying capacity (EECC) is a yardstick for guiding the practice of sustainable urban development, it is therefore pressing to examine the change of EECC adequately, so that the sustainable urbanization can be addressed appropriately. This paper develops a new method from load-carrier perspective to explore the change of EECC performance in the rapid urbanizing China. The EECC performance on water, land, atmosphere and overall perspectives were measured for 30 provinces in China based on the established method. The results show that most provinces in China are experiencing an improving EECC performance during the urbanization process, particularly with an obvious progress in land dimension. In referring to the spatial difference of overall EECC performance, the gap between 30 provinces has been narrowing during surveyed years. However, few provinces including Chongqing, Shandong and Jiangxi have undergone a degradation in overall EECC performance. The EECC performance in atmosphere dimension is still considered as a challenge faced by most provinces, evidenced by high level of PM2.5 concentration. These research findings provide valuable references not only for Chinese governments to formulate effective policy instruments and strategy measures for improving ecological environmental carrying status, but also for researchers to further study in the ecological environment carrying capacity in the context of other countries.