Abstract:The Spring Festival, China’s most important annual celebration, is a tradition in which people return to their hometown and spend the festivities with their families. However, in 2021, large numbers of new COVID-19 cases across China prior to the Spring Festival, threatened the control of the pandemic, and to prevent the spread of COVID-19 many local governments implemented the policy of “staying put during the Spring Festival” and provided different kinds of subsidies to encourage working laborers to stay where they work to keep safe.But how effective was this policy in affecting people’s decisions to return to their hometowns? Did it merely encourage residents to return at another time, such as Qingming Festival, rather than during the Spring Festival? If yes, what kind of policy is more effective in stimulating people to “staying put during the Spring Festival”. By answering these questions, with a descriptive, rather than emprical analysis of the returning behaviors, this study tries to analyze the effect of the policy on short-term migration both theoretically and empirically, and fill a gap in the literature.Based on the principle of the maximization of profit and the minimization of risk from the new economics of labor migration theory, this study first explores how the policy and the pandemic affect people’s decisions by altering profit and risks of returning home, and then identifies and compares the returning behavior of 37,281,533 subjects working in Zhejiang during the Spring and Qingming Festivals in 2019 and 2021 using China Mobile signaling data grouped with the policy of each county in Zhejiang. These in turn are subject to an empirical discussion of the role of the “staying put” policy on migrant workers’ returning behavior in different regions.The empirical results reveal the following: first, the proportion of workers returning home in 2021 is lower during the Spring Festival (45%) and higher during the Qingming Festival (176%) than that of 2019. In addition, the higher the proportion of returning home during the Spring Festival, the lower that of returning home during the Qingming Festival. These results suggest that people choose another time to return to their hometown; secondly, due to the higher risks brought by long-distance travel, laborers whose returning distance is longer prefer to return home during the Qingming Festival rather than the Spring Festival. In addition, the decision to return to the hometown is also affected by the industrial structure, population size, and economic development of work and home places; thirdly, regression analysis proves that the “staying put during the Spring Festival” policy encourages people to choose another time to return home overall. Further heterogeneity analysis indicates that the cash-incentive policy effectively prompts people to stay put during the Spring Festival and return home at another time, while the other policies do not have a significant effect. What is more, the policy is more effective for people who work closer to their hometowns, and an increase in distance will weaken the effectiveness of the policy.In recent years, to relieve the traffic pressure from the Spring Festival’s mass migration, China has taken various measures from the supply side, such as increasing railway capacity and adjusting the train schedules. However, these measures have caused an enormous waste of resources on regular days. The results of study provide clear implications for alleviating the traffic pressure of the Spring Festival from the demand side, preventing certain social risks during some special periods (such as pandemics), and propose possible solutions to institutional and social problems in the process of urbanization. Nevertheless, to solve the underlying social problems behind the mass migration during the Spring Festival, it is necessary to provide more measures to help the migrants integrate into the cities where they work and become a real part of the local society.
董照樱子, 王晓亮, 张蔚文, 汤劲松. 就地过年政策可以促进人们择期返乡吗?——基于手机信令大数据的实证分析[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2022, 52(3): 84-99.
Dong Zhaoyingzi, Wang Xiaoliang, Zhang Weiwen, Tang Jinsong. Does the Policy of "Staying Put During the Spring Festival" Encourage People to Return Home at Another Time?. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2022, 52(3): 84-99.
Ozgen C., Nijkamp P. & Poot J., “The effect of migration on income growth and convergence: meta-analytic evidence,” Papers in Regional Science, Vol. 89, No. 3 (2010), pp. 537-561.2 Mendola M., “Rural out-migration and economic development at origin: a review of the evidence,” Journal of International Development, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2012), pp. 102-122.3 Su Y., Tesfazion P. & Zhao Z., “Where are the migrants from? inter-vs. intra-provincial rural-urban migration in China,” China Economic Review, Vol. 47 (2018), pp. 142-155.4 Li Y. & Liu X., “How did urban polycentricity and dispersion affect economic productivity? a case study of 306 Chinese cities,” Landscape and Urban Planning, Vol. 173 (2018), pp. 51-59.5 于潇、孙悦: 《城镇与农村流动人口的收入差异——基于2015年全国流动人口动态监测数据的分位数回归分析》,《人口研究》2017年第1期,第84-97页。6 段成荣、朱宝树、崔传义等: 《春运与流动人口》,《人口研究》2009年第1期,第30-45页。7 叶文平、李新春、陈强远: 《流动人口对城市创业活跃度的影响:机制与证据》,《经济研究》2018年第6期,第157-170页。8 沈建法: 《中国人口迁移,流动人口与城市化——现实,理论与对策》,《地理研究》2019年第1期,第33-44页。9 翟振武、王宇、石琦: 《中国流动人口走向何方?》,《人口研究》2019年第2期,第6-11页。10 史晋川、吴兴杰: 《我国地区收入差距、流动人口与刑事犯罪率的实证研究》,《浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版)》2010年第1期,第73-84页。11 王春光: 《我国城市就业制度对进城农村流动人口生存和发展的影响》,《浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版)》2006年第5期,第5-15页。12 姚先国、王同益、金樟峰: 《市民化与个人劳动收入:外部性视角》,《浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版)》2016年第5期,第182-197页。13 张蔚文、卓何佳、董照樱子: 《新冠疫情背景下的用工荒:基于人口流动与复工复产政策的考察》,《中国人口·资源与环境》2020年第6期,第29-39页。14 冯章献、张瑜、魏冶等: 《基于百度迁徙数据的长春市春运人口流动时空格局与动力机制》,《经济地理》2019年第5期,第101-109页。15 赖建波、潘竟虎: 《基于腾讯迁徙数据的中国“春运”城市间人口流动空间格局》,《人文地理》2019年第3期,第108-117页。16 魏冶、修春亮、刘志敏等: 《春运人口流动透视的转型期中国城市网络结构》,《地理科学》2016年第11期,第1654-1660页。17 赵梓渝、王士君: 《2015年我国春运人口省际流动的时空格局》,《人口研究》2017年第3期,第101-112页。18 赵梓渝、魏冶、王士君等: 《有向加权城市网络的转变中心性与控制力测度——以中国春运人口流动网络为例》,《地理研究》2017年第4期,第647-660页。19 朱江丽、李子联: 《户籍改革、人口流动与地区差距——基于异质性人口跨期流动模型的分析》,《经济学(季刊)》2016年第2期,第797-816页。20 盛亦男: 《中国流动人口家庭化迁居》,《人口研究》2013年第4期,第66-79页。21 扈新强、赵玉峰: 《从离散到聚合:中国流动人口家庭化分析》,《人口研究》2021年第4期,第69-84页。22 Ravenstein E., “The laws of migration,” Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. 48, No. 2 (1885), pp. 167-235.23 Bogue D., Internal Migration, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1959.24 Lee E., “A theory of migration,” Demography, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1966), pp. 47-57.25 Lewis W., “Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour,” The Manchester School, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1954), pp. 139-191.26 Harris J. & Todaro M., “Migration, unemployment & development: a two-sector analysis,” American Economic Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (1970), pp. 126-142.27 Stark O. & Levhari D., “On migration and risk in LDCs,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 31, No. 1 (1982), pp. 191-196.