Return migration and Hukou registration constraints in Chinese__cities.pdf

This paper documents the patterns of return migration and labor mobility constraints in China

using two unique data: the 2017 China Household Finance Survey and a newly developed urban

Hukou registration index. The size of return migrants is larger than that of migrants without local

Hukou registration. Majority of return migrants move from more developed region back to their

less developed home town where they have Hukou registration. Empirical results show that

Hukou registration barrier, typically higher in more developed cities, leads to a higher probability

of returning among low-skilled migrant workers, and such an effffect only exits among migrants

moving across provinces and migrants with rural Hukou.