Redai dili (May 2021)
The Structural Relationship among Leisure Involvement, Place Attachment, and Migrant Workers' Willingness to Stay in the City: A Case Study of Guangzhou
Abstract
Based on the policy orientation of the orderly promotion of the citizenization of an agricultural population in transition, the results of studies on migrant workers' willingness to stay in the city are abundant and meaningful. Most researchers have focused on the influencing factors of their willingness to stay in the city, including personal and family characteristics, economic factors, and social factors. Less attention has been paid to the influencing mechanism from a continuous and subjective psychological perspective. To fill this gap—under the paradigm of "cognition-emotion-behavior intention," drawing on the sample survey data of Guangzhou (representing a typical immigration city in China), based on place attachment theory, and using means statistics of the sample, independent sample t test, one-way ANOVA, and structural equation model analysis methods—this paper explored the characteristics of migrant workers' willingness to stay in the city and place attachment. We focused on the empirical test of the research model concerning the influence of migrant workers' leisure involvement and local attachment on their willingness to stay in the city. The major research conclusions were as follows: (1) migrant workers' willingness to stay in Guangzhou and the degree of their local attachment are relatively strong—the mean value of local dependence is the highest (3.810), which is higher than the willingness to stay in the city (3.711), local identity (3.674), and social connection (3.400); this indicates that migrant workers pay more attention to the functional attributes of Guangzhou in work and life; and (2) there are significant differences in the willingness to stay in the city and local attachment among migrant workers with different individual characteristics, including marital status, education level, monthly income, industry, working years in Guangzhou, and home province. Demographic factors play a prominent role in migrant workers' willingness to stay in the city and local attachment: migrant workers in Guangzhou who have a high school or secondary technical school degree or above, whose monthly income is between 2 001 and 4 000 yuan, and who have worked in Guangzhou for more than one year have the strongest willingness to stay in the city. The degree of local dependence, local identity, social connections, and willingness to stay in the city is significantly lower among migrant workers from western provinces than workers from the eastern and central provinces; and (3) leisure involvement has a significant and positive direct effect on the willingness to stay in the city, while place attachment has a significant and positive intermediary effect. After the intervention of the intermediary variable of place attachment, the direct effect of leisure involvement on the willingness to stay in the city is significantly weakened, and the indirect effect is relatively and significantly enhanced. The attraction, centrality to life, and self-expression of leisure involvement have significant positive effects on the place dependence, place identity, and social connection components of place attachment and each dimension above has significant positive effects on willingness to stay in the city. The study's conclusions can provide a reference for city and community-related management departments to understand the psychological needs of migrant workers, and improve the management system of migrant workers' orderly urbanization.
Keywords
