Redai dili (Aug 2022)

Can They Have both "Home" and "Employment and Entrepreneurship": A Research on Return Intention of Young Migrant Workers

  • Xie Yongfei,
  • Liang Bo,
  • Lin Lihua

DOI
https://doi.org/10.13284/j.cnki.rddl.003533
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 42, no. 8
pp. 1288 – 1300

Abstract

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From the perspective of individual psychological decision-making, drawing on data from the 2016 "Migrants' Dynamic Monitoring Survey" and case interview data, using mixed research method of quantitative research and qualitative research, this paper analyzes the influence mechanism of "home" and "employment and entrepreneurship" in the outflow area to young migrant workers' return migration intention. It is found that "home" in the cultural sense is a deep factor affecting return migration intention of young migrant workers, but its influence needs to be strengthened by "employment and entrepreneurship". They work together to generate return migration intention of young migrant workers. The cultural concept of "home" triggers the return of young migrant workers through new life nodes, challenging family responsibilities and planned family development. While the imagination of "employment and entrepreneurship" strengthens return migration intention by choosing new employment places, longing for good employment conditions, looking for unique entrepreneurial resources and changing the old development path. Thus some young migrant workers in the outflow place can have both"home" and "employment and entrepreneurship"at the same time. In the current situation of unbalanced and insufficient development among regions in China, the governments in the central and western region should not only vigorously develop the economy, increase employment opportunities and improve the income level, but also increase the entrepreneurial support for returned young migrant workers, so that the "employment and entrepreneurship" of returned young migrant workers can be continuously strengthened, and they can continue to have both"home" and "employment and entrepreneurship". This paper have expanded the depth and breadth of the analysis of the return migration problem of young migrant workers, and promoted the development of relevant fields. Its contributions are as follows: first, based on the perspective of individual psychological decision-making, through in-depth observation and description, it presents the generation process and mechanism of young migrant workers' return migration intention in a more detailed and comprehensive way. Second, by examining the mechanism of both"home" and "employment and entrepreneurship" affecting the return migration intention of young migrant workers , it finds that some returned young migrant workers can have both "home" and "employment and entrepreneurship". Third, this paper takes "home" in the cultural sense as a method to analyze the return migration intention in China, which is different from the understanding of "home" in foreign Critical Geography. In the study of migrant workers, we can take "home" as a key entry point, and build an analytical framework of Chinese discourse from "home", which contains the possibility of creating a theory of Chinese local population mobile.

Keywords