ABSTRACT
Government policy has been an important determinant of Chinese migration patterns since the founding of the People’s Republic. The main migration stream for the rural population, especially since the readjustment of migration policy, has been rural-to-urban. The general trend of internal migration in China involves two coexistent patterns: the one organized and planned, the other essentially spontaneous and unplanned. The pattern of migration in urban China is like that of neither well developed nor developing countries. In China, there is more fluctuation in the rate; greater demographic similarity among migrants, irrespective of destination; and more government control as to quantity, direction and composition. The core of migration policy in China is the exercise of control over the volume of movement into the cities, especially into the extra-large and large cities. Migration between cities of the same size should be freely permitted and two-way migration between cities of different size opened up.
