Explaining Interregional Migration Changes in China, 1985-2000, Using a Decomposition Approach

Shen J. Explaining interregional migration changes in China, 1985-2000, using a decomposition approach, Regional Studies. This paper estimates the effects of changing parameters in migration models and the changing demographic, social, and economic attributes in origin and destinations on migration flows. A decomposition approach is developed based on multilevel Poisson migration models. Multilevel Poisson migration models are estimated for migration in China for the periods 1985-1990 and 1995-2000. Overall, the total inter-provincial migration was increased by 22 million in China from 1985-1990 to 1995-2000. The decomposition result shows that 62.28% of this increase was due to changes in the value of explanatory variables, while 37.72% was due to changes in the value of model parameters.