The Influence of Cultural Distance on Settlement Intention of Floating Population in China

TL;DR

This study examines how cultural differences, measured by dialectal distance, negatively affect the willingness of China's floating population to settle, with effects varying by age, gender, and education level.

Contribution

It introduces dialectal distance as a proxy for cultural distance and analyzes its impact on settlement intention across different demographic groups in China.

Findings

Cultural distance negatively influences settlement intention.

The effect is weaker among younger and higher-educated migrants.

Societal integration and education reduce cultural barriers.

Abstract

Based on a nationwide labour-force survey data, this paper investigates the influence of cultural variance on migrants' settlement intention in China. By using dialectal distance as a proxy for cultural distance, we find strong evidence for the negative effects of cultural distance on migrants' settlement intention. By further investigation into sub-samples separated by gender, generation and higher education experience, we find that the influence is less effective for younger migrants and higher-educated migrants, which indicates that the impact of cultural barrier may gradually diminish with the integration of society and promotion of education.