Internal Migration in the Context of High Emigration in Fujian, China: Building the Linkage and Reaching beyond Community Development

Qian Song, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
Zai Liang, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)

Using China’s Fujian Province as a case, this paper examines patterns of internal migration as a response of emigrations in the context of high emigration communities. Our findings suggest that emigration of individuals initially deterred both interprovincial and intra-provincial migration of other family members, and yet, overtime they had an increasing propensity to migrate internally at both scales. During the internal migration process, family members of emigrants were better rewarded economically and had reached farther destinations than those without emigration experiences in family. We thus suggest that research on international migration and economic development at the micro level should move beyond examinations of remittance use and scale up to a broader geographical area, and care for the “spill over” effect for communities beyond. Our results imply that the picture of development in origin country after emigration should be brighter than what we had obtained from direct examination of remittance use.