%0 Journal Article %A Liyue LIN %A Yu ZHU %A Wenqian KE %A Jianshun WANG %T The impact of migrants' access to urban public services on their urban settlement intentions: A study from the perspective of different-sized cities %D 2019 %R 10.11821/dlxb201904009 %J Acta Geographica Sinica %P 737-752 %V 74 %N 4 %X

In recent years, urbanization has been attached an increasing importance in China's overall development strategies. Migrants' settlement intention in cities has played an important role in affecting the urbanization trend in China. In such a context, both scholars and policy makers have increasingly attempted to understand the settlement intention of migrants in China. However, few studies so far have examined the role of migrants' access to urban public services in affecting their settlement intention from the perspective of different-sized cities. Based on the data from "the 2016 national dynamic monitoring survey of migrant population" in Shanghai Municipality and Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces, this paper aims to address this issue. We utilize a composite index consisting of three dimensions to measure migrants' settlement intention, namely the long-term residence intention, the hukou transfer intention, and the urban housing purchase intention. We divide urban public services into two types, namely employment-related public services and social (non-employment) public services. The paper then explores the differences in the supply of the two types of urban public services and their impacts on migrants' urban settlement intention of different-sized cities. The results show that the bigger the size of a city is, the greater the likelihood that migrants get access to urban pubic services and the higher their level of urban settlement intention is. Migrants with easier access to the urban public services are more likely to settle down in cities. Through the ordered logistic regression model analysis, we also find that, after controlling for the effects of individual characteristics, family features, and migration characteristics, the two types of urban public services provided by cities for migrants have played a critical role in affecting migrants' urban settlement intention. However, the impacts of access to urban public services on migrants' urban settlement intention are different among different-sized cities. This is reflected in the following facts. First, migrants with easier access to unemployment insurance, medical insurance and housing security are more likely to settle down in cities, but this positive effect is limited to large cities. Second, in all size cities, migrants who are more likely to be covered by resident health records and receive more health education are more likely to settle down in cities. Finally, in small cities, only those covered by resident health records and receiving more health education have great effects on urban settlement intention.

%U https://www.geog.com.cn/EN/10.11821/dlxb201904009