Date & Time:  February 8^th 17h30 (CET)

Speakers: Ling Zhou (TSE)

Register here (Zoom)

Topic:  Marriage, Migration Policy, and Migration: Evidence from the Hukou Reform in China

Abstract:
Do marriage prospects affect migration decisions? To what extent do marriage choices shape the migration responses to merit-based policies that regulate access to locals' benefits? The fact that marrying locals allows migrants to overcome the constraints of regulations brings two effects. First, migrants benefit more from becoming locals by being more attractive in the marriage market. Second, migrants adjust spouse choices according to regulations. The comparative statics of a parsimonious model show that merit-based policies may have substantial indirect impacts on the demographics of migrants. China is ideal to study the questions. The hukou system controls internal migration by restricting migrants' access to local public services, and there are rich, comparable policy variations since 1997. I estimate a dynamic marriage and migration model using the data in 2000 and 2005 and conduct two exercises for 2000. First, by shutting down marriages between couples with different hukou, the number of young migrants in large cities drops by 5.6% for males and 12.8% for females. One-third of the drops are due to the privileges of marrying locals. Second, if migrants can get local hukou immediately, migrant flows increase by 3.9 times for males and 3.0 times for females.