Integration of migrants in poverty alleviation resettlement to urban China

Since 2018, China's poverty alleviation resettlement (PAR) project has resettled 16 million inhabitants living in deprived areas to more habitable cities or towns. Understanding the integration of the resettlers into the new communities is crucial but has received little academic attention. The study fills this research gap by providing a measurement framework for the integration of PAR resettlers, and further by empirically examining the determinants driving their integration. We model resettlers' integration by structural equation modelling, based on a survey data of 553 resettlers sampled from eight Chinese provinces. The results reveal that cultural, psychological, and societal integration better characterize the successful integration of resettlers than do political and economic integration. The results on the determinants of integration reveal that older age and holding a hukou residential permit in the new community hamper integration. Finally, resettlers of Han ethnicity, those relocated along with their entire village community, and engagement in government-led industrial development or employment programmes help improve the experience of integration. • We propose a measurement framework for the multi-dimensional concept of integration. • Cultural, psychological, and societal factors better reflect integration than do political and economic dimensions. • Engagement in governmental-led industrial development or employment programs improves integration. • Older and ethnical minority resettlers are less integrated than the younger and Han resettlers. • The relocation of entire villages improves integration while H ukou registration at the resettlement site hampers it.