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This paper analyzes the impact of internet use on entrepreneurship activities. This is based on 2014 survey data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). The results show that internet use promotes the entrepreneurial tendency of Chinese entrepreneurs and affects their income levels. Moreover, such influences are moderated by the location of individuals; the impact is higher for the entrepreneurial tendency and income levels of rural residents than that of urban ones. In addition, this paper also finds that internet use stimulates entrepreneurship by promoting social networks. Furthermore, social networks bring more salient impacts to rural residents as compared to those of urban ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population density affects human behavior. A dense population has been shown to exacerbate impulses such as, "fight" (aggression stimulated by crowding) or "flight" (withdrawal from social life for escape). This paper explores the impact of population density on the level of generalized trust that lies in China, a topic understated by extant empirical studies so far. Drawing data from Chinese General Social Survey (2010–2013), we attempt to examine the density-trust link. China provides a context-specific case because: (1) the narrow "radius" of generalized trust (people's notion of "most people" is more in-group connoted than out-group connoted) derived from Confucian tradition decreases the probability of interacting with out-group members, suggesting that both "fight" and "flight" that rely on out-group interactions have little effect in this context, and (2) hukou (household registration) restrictions force rural-to-urban migrants into the secondary labor market, leading to social segregation producing distrust in cities. The results of hierarchical models on data from 17,331 individuals and panel models on data from four waves of 114 counties both revealed that (1) population density negatively predicts the level of generalized trust among urban residents and (2) it is "friction," or occupational segregation by hukou restrictions, that mediates the density-trust relation, neither "fight" nor "flight" does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the living environment through household efforts remains a challenge for many developing countries. Little attention has been given to the role of Internet use in previous studies. Based on the Attitude Behavior Context (A-B-C) theory, this paper builds a theoretical framework where Internet use affects residents' adoption of living environment improvement practices (LEIPs). Using large-scale household survey data from China, this paper adopts the recursive bivariate probit model to overcome the endogeneity biases and investigate the treatment effects of Internet use on residents' adoption of integrated flushing toilets (IFT) and centralized disposal of domestic waste (CDDW). The results indicate that Internet use increases the likelihood of adopting IFT and CDDW by 24.5% and 19.0% respectively for Internet users. Besides, the counterfactual results show that the possibility of adopting IFT and CDDW will increase by 28.8% and 26.4% respectively if they use the Internet. Moreover, residents who are female, the CPC members, having more years of education and higher household income are more likely to adopt LEIPs. Additionally, the results show evidence of regional heterogeneity. Overall, the impact of Internet use on LEIPs adoption is larger for residents in less-developed and urban areas. The findings suggest that policies embedded with expanding Internet access shall help to promote the sustainable improvement of residents' living environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid suburbanization in China is dramatically reshaping the daily life of urban residents. In China, long-distance commuting, traffic congestion, spatial mismatch and the low quality of life resulting from residential suburbanization are causing widespread concern. This paper compares the changes in time allocation from a time-use perspective, based on two activity-travel survey datasets collected in suburban Beijing in respectively 2007 and 2017. Travelling time to work has increased substantially between 2007 and 2017 and particularly impacted non-working activities. Working and commuting showed to have the greatest impact on time allocated to non-work activities, both in home and out of home, both maintenance and discretionary activities. Furthermore, residents' allocation of time to non-work activities shows to be influenced too by their socioeconomic attributes, such as gender, marital status and household configuration (e.g. extended family). We found that the space–time constraints imposed by household responsibilities leads to greater gender differences in time allocation. This paper provides insight into how urban residents reallocate their time as a result of increasing suburbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's increasingly developed high-speed railways (HSR) network has been found to have important influences on economic development, but analysis of its effect on individual income is inadequate. Based on the data of Chinese Household Income Project Survey (CHIP07 and CHIP13) and China's HSR data, this paper examines HSR's influence on residents' income and the underlying mechanism. Using the difference-in-differences (DID) approach, we document that the connection of HSR network increases both urban and rural residents' income. Besides, to address the potential endogeneity, we construct the least cost path spanning tree network to be served as an instrumental variable (IV) of HSR and the results confirm the reliability of the conclusion. What's more, a HSR-induced industrial restructuring mechanism is revealed by further study, and those who received the higher education is proved to benefit most from HSR. Therefore, education turns out to be an effective way to enhance HSR's income effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2022, the dynamic zero-COVID control policy came to an end, marking the conclusion of a three-year pandemic that affected 1.4 billion Chinese people. The pandemic and related policies created a unique, temporary, and historic social ecosystem where walking became more crucial than ever before. The pandemic not only severely restricted people's movement in public spaces but also exposed the longstanding contradictions between human bodies, modern mobility, and urban space. Over the three years of the pandemic, walking became an aesthetic survival attempt by Chinese people to cope with their limited freedoms under the pandemic. As the pandemic stagnated and worsened over time, walking-dominant activities gradually became a widespread social phenomenon that encouraged urban residents to participate in rebuilding society across various fields such as politics, art, nature, etc. The development of walking as an artistic form during this period represents a new aesthetic strategy and political awakening while reflecting humans' need to reconnect with land, social space, and their own bodies. This paper reviews how walking art has evolved historically through three periods – before, during, and after the pandemic – aiming to highlight both the public value of walking art and challenges within China's social ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In general, perception surveys toward foreign countries tend to focus on urban populations with consistently high levels of education during the analysis phase. This is because they are considered more important in influencing domestic and international politics. This paper seeks to counter these traditional perception surveys and focus on those at the frontline of development. It aims to identify the perceptions of those at the frontline of China's long-standing mining development projects in Zambia toward China and how they view development in the region. Perception surveys and focus group interviews with various social groups were conducted in Chambishi in the Copperbelt, where mining development has long been taking place. The study then identified differences in perceptions and underlying factors among those who are considered to have a high level of education. The survey results show that the public's perceptions toward China are nested. Chambishi residents, who are at the frontline of development driven by China, were found to have a favorable perception toward them. People are acutely aware that China is essential for Zambia's development. On the other hand, the high favorable perception toward China does not mean that they feel that China is psychologically close to them. Although people appreciate the diverse contributions that Chinese companies make to the region, they strongly hold the view that these contributions are "insufficient" when compared to the mining resources in the region that China is enclosing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doubtless, China's long-term extensive development model has exacerbated environmental pollution, thus posing a great threat to the health of its residents. Against this background, the present paper constructs a comprehensive system for evaluating environmental pollution from the perspective of environmental pollution and natural purification, and then empirically analyzes the impact of environmental pollution on the "near-term health," "self-rated health", and "mental health" of Chinese residents via the Hierarchical Linear Model based on the data from China Family Panel Studies in 2016. This paper focuses on the impact of environmental pollution on physical health as well as on mental health. The results are as follows: (1) although environmental pollution in China has no significant negative impact on the "near-term health" of residents, it can reduce the levels of "self-rated health" and "mental health" of residents; (2) environmental pollution causes more health losses to the low-income group and residents in underdeveloped cities in central and western China. It is argued that perfecting public services is an important way to improve residents' physical and mental health in the process of urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The one-child policy in China brought about a fast decline in fertility levels and an increasingly skewed sex ratio at birth in China. The deep-seated tradition of son preference has been regarded as the main cause. However, news and recent research have pointed out that having daughters appears more popular among young people in urban areas. The analysis reported in this paper was based on empirical evidence drawn from 47 in-depth interviews. Findings highlighted that regarding the preference of sex at birth, a relatively balanced composition is sought in most cases. Other than the absolute dominance of one son and one daughter together, a preference for having a son remains. Although having two daughters has gained greater popularity among young couples, this turns out to be a compromise to some extent. Daughter preference cannot be regarded as a major trend. In practice, a stronger preference for a certain sex increases the fertility rate as couples attempt to fulfil their preferences, whereas no preference signals the least likelihood to realise fertility intentions. In this sense, the desire to have two children with at least one son may help boost fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the improved Tapio decoupling model and geographic information system spatial analysis technology, this paper studied the spatial and temporal pattern evolution law of the decoupling relationship between innovation capability and resource consumption in 283 cities in China. The non-residual complete decomposition model was used to decompose the rebound effect of resource consumption in China's urban innovation development. We found (1) during the study period, innovation capability and resource consumption in Chinese cities showed a weak decoupling state. (2) Regions with significant decoupling showed a trend of spatial agglomeration, and the gap in the degree of urban decoupling gradually narrowed. (3) The increase in urban population growth and innovation intensity in China have a positive pull effect on resource consumption. The improvement in resource efficiency has an inhibitory effect on resource consumption, but this inhibition is less than the effect of population scale and innovation intensity on resource consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boosting domestic demand is the task of China's sustainable economic development, and in particular, China has become an important global consumer market and the savings patterns should be more cohesive and without discriminations. Using data of China Migrants Dynamic Survey, the paper provides new evidence on internal migrants' savings in China from the perspective of homeownership and family migration. We find that migrants' savings are 5.25–6.60 percentage points higher than hukou population even when controlling for working, social status, and social insurance coverage which means the migrant will save 1019.88–1647.10 yuan in 2010 price more monthly. Furthermore, we discover housing could partly explain the saving gap, while when we take remittance and family migration into account, the saving rate differences between migrants and hukou population disappears, which means migrants may save to consume when they go back to their hometown with their family members instead of consuming later in the resident cities. The research is carried out taking into account the objectives of social cohesion policy identified at national and international level and their involvement in consumption and saving processes. Our empirical results reveal that homeownership, remittance motive and family migration play important roles in shaping saving behaviour of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of China's economy has led to a sharp increase in the municipal solid waste (MSW). China has promulgated the MSW mandatory classification policy. The implementation effect of such mandatory policy is an important concern to the government, scholars, and the public, but has not been extensively studied. This paper explores the implementation effect of such policy through assessing the waste classification behavior of residents based on the Cellular Automata model. The simulation results show that the residents will not adjust their MSW classification behavior during the time period when the mandatory classification policy is not implemented. But when the mandatory classification policy is imposed, the residents will adjust their classification behavior over time from t = 100 to t = 300. The results indicate that the extent of residents' participation in waste classification varies by different enforcement intensities. The higher the intensity is, the more rapidly the residents' MSW classification behavior improves. The results also indicate that the extent of residents' participation in waste classification varies by different urban population size. The larger the urban population size is, the higher the proportion of classification participation is. Implications: The implementation effect of the municipal solid waste mandatory classification policy is an important concern to the government, scholars, and the public, but has not been extensively studied. This paper explores the implementation effect of such policy through assessing the waste classification behavior of residents based on the Cellular Automata model. The simulation results show that the residents will not adjust their municipal solid waste classification behavior during the time period when the mandatory classification policy is not implemented. But when the mandatory classification policy is imposed, the residents will adjust their classification behavior over time. The results also indicate that the extent of residents' participation in waste classification varies by different enforcement intensities and different urban population sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the housing issue which segregates city dwellers and marginalises the migrants, this paper proposes an architectural transformation of a dominant type in Chinese cities, in search of a sustainable regeneration strategy which encourages social integration. This paper is concerned with two main issues: how to transform a dominant type of high-rise residential living – i.e. tower-podium residential – in China to promote a sustainable city, architecture and community; and how to integrate migrant-working class with the middle-income class to form a hybrid cohabitation place. The paper uses a design project to put forward a hypothesis, focusing on modifying the spaces of the podium in a tower-podium residential building in Xiaowen Street, Ningbo to provide a cohabitation living space for both migrant-working class and middle-income class group. The design creates spaces for living, co-working and community interaction, etc. to cultivate hybrid programme and spaces aided by informal spatial design strategies. Besides providing a case study of typological transformation with a tower-podium housing type of Ningbo, the study also contributes to the literature of informal cities and design strategies in seeing architectural design as an active agent for social changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To collect and sort out key measures in the process of disposing SARS pathogen in China in 2003 and afterward. Based on the perspective of public crisis management, analyze the main factors that may cause a public crisis in a sudden and important epidemic situation. This paper explores the possible factors that induced public crises during the handling of epidemic events, and then combs the path from public events to public crisis events. We find that urban residents are more sensitive than rural residents, and are prone to cause multiple public crises, which last longer and have greater intensity. Although the duration of public crisis is relatively short and the intensity is relatively low, the importance and urgency of public crisis incident handling and emergency countermeasures formulating cannot be ignored. At the same time, as all levels and departments are pursuing the goal of maximizing their own interests, the contradiction between the individual rationality of each level and each department and the collective rationality of the entire society will inevitably arise. Accelerating the establishment of social contradictions and emergency evolution models and coping mechanisms of the multi-layered and multi-sectoral dynamic gambling, so as to better build a warning and emergency management system of social contradiction and emergency public emergency. Finally, there is a gap in the education of citizens' crisis awareness and response ability. The public generally has poor social alertness, lack of crisis knowledge, low level of public participation in early warning, and inadequate ability of government officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, urban resettlement as a specific form of urbanisation has gained its momentum in planning practices to accommodate newcomers of cities, in line with the macro policy reforms of urban-rural integration. This paper synthesises literature related to the proposed term 'urban resettlement with Chinese characteristics' to shed light on the distinctive and unparalleled socio-economic and spatial transformation entailed by the ongoing urban resettlement in China. Mindful of China's socialist ideology and authoritarian regime, we argue that urban resettlement has become a potent tool for the Chinese government to fuel economic development and urbanisation. The longstanding issues such as involuntary resettlement have been alleviated with the gradualist institutional changes, but emerging predicaments concerning social mismatch, space mismatch, and spatial mismatch still linger. This paper calls for researchers to draw lessons and implications from the discourse of 'urban resettlement with Chinese characteristics' to expand the knowledge of sustainable urban-rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online shopping has becomes more and more popular in China largely due to the convenience and competitive prices of online products and services. This paper discusses fours issues related to online shopping. Using data from the Chinese Household Financial Survey 2013 and 2015, we find that online shopping is a more common practice for higher income earners, youngsters, women, married couples, better educated citizens, urban residents, and smartphone users. Online consumption is affected by similar factors. We observe the concavity of income on household total consumption and money savings due to online shopping. We conclude that online shopping improves the income efficiency on household total consumption. Using smartphones does not promote total consumption, although it increases online consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing has become the most important asset held by a large proportion of China’s older citizens. Therefore, the role of housing wealth in the consumption decisions of the elderly is a central topic of research and gains insights into the saving, investment and consumption decisions made throughout household life to meet later pension needs. In this paper, using data drawn from a household survey conducted between 2002 and 2009, we estimate the influence of housing wealth on the non-housing consumption of the elderly, and identify the mechanisms underlying this relationship. We find that on average, changes in housing wealth have limited effects on elderly consumption. However, we also find that the role of housing in consumption differs according to the income, health status, and living arrangements of the elderly. The paper draws attention to the influence of housing and its links with social and health-care systems on the lives of older people, with important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the high-speed urbanization process of China, the urban population has been increasing significantly, leading to a high-density aggregation of population. However, the sharp increase in population density has not produced commensurate improvements in the road networks. On the contrary, the population increase induced a serious evacuation vulnerability, which cities experience during various hazards and catastrophic events. Therefore, research on evacuation vulnerability is important to urban planning. To assess the evacuation vulnerability, the optimal and worst scenarios should be considered because all possible evacuation plans occur between these extremes. However, most previous evacuation vulnerability studies are based on the worst-case scenario, only providing an upper bound of a potential evacuation assessment. To provide a more comprehensive theoretical basis for decision-makers to understand the consequences caused by all possible evacuations, this paper proposes an optimal evacuation vulnerability assessment model that provides the lower bound on potential evacuation difficulties. The model is solved by a stepwise spreading algorithm based on Graph Theory. Subsequently, to evaluate the effectiveness of the model, the study adopts the model to assess the evacuation capability of different road network topologies. A comparison with previous research was performed. The model was demonstrated in an application to the South Luogu Alley of Beijing, China. The significance of this paper is that the combination of our model with previous research may provide a more complete theoretical basis for an evacuation vulnerability assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local government debt played a vital role in China's urbanization. But its influence on the new urbanization is not clear. Based on the definition of new urbanization, the paper focuses on the characteristics of local government debt and whether local government debt can meet the needs of new urbanization. The empirical research shows that local government debt promotes the urbanization rate, infrastructure supply and public products supply. But it is not conducive to the increase of urban residents' income, which is the important component of new urbanization. The influence of local government debt on new urbanization is different at different stages of new urbanization. The suggestion is that local government should use local government debt, private capital and foreign capital reasonably considering regional and development stage characteristics, instead of debt only to accelerate the development of new urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

App-based ride-hailing is a newly emergent mode of travel that is expected to influence passengers' travel behavior significantly. In this study, we define app-based ride-hailing services to include hailing of taxis through smartphone apps and sharing of private vehicles (car sharing is not included). This paper is one of the first quantitative studies to examine how app-based ride hailing would impact passengers' choice of travel mode and change car-purchasing behaviors. China is taken as the empirical context, and the data are from a large-scale app-based survey conducted via the largest app-based ride-hailing platform in the world. Drawing on these rich survey data, the investigation covers both the short-term travel mode choices and long-term car-purchasing behaviors of app-based ride-hailing users. The research findings are helpful in understanding changes in urban residents' travel behaviors under in context of app-based ride hailing, and provide valuable in-depth insights for both governments and app-based ride-hailing service providers (i.e., enterprises) for the management and regulation of ride hailing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates disparities in subjective wellbeing in China by analyzing the Chinese General Social Survey (2003–2015). Our hierarchical age-period-cohort models reveal how Chinese Communist Party membership, the urban-rural divide, and cohort differences have jointly shaped levels of happiness. Interestingly, the significance of political status in shaping happiness varies profoundly across birth cohorts and locations of residence. In earlier cohorts (1910–1948), Communist Party members in rural areas have a considerable advantage over nonmembers, but this advantage gradually diminishes later, except the 1977–1985 cohort. The advantage of urban party membership keeps increasing up to the cohort born during 1957–1965 but declines rapidly after that. Findings suggest that in the planned economy, political status plays a central role in promoting subjective wellbeing especially in urban China; the transition to a market economy in post-Mao China has reduced political disparities among younger cohorts, mainly for urban residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although China's urban floating population is mainly concentrated in developed cities, from the central and western cities to the eastern developed cities, but the characteristics of the floating population in different cities are significantly different. This paper systematically investigates the spatiotemporal characteristics and influencing factors of the floating population in different levels of cities. The results show that the regional imbalance to further strengthen, accumulation and dispersion trend has become increasingly obvious, liquidity is positively correlated and city level scale, and urban agglomeration and the core city is still polarization center of floating population. Flow range is closely related to urban hierarchy: the higher the intra-urban grade, the more tend to inter-provincial flow; the lower the city grade, the more tend to intra-urban mobility. Short-term (1-2 years) and long-term (more than 7 years) flow-time coexist. The short-term liquidity increases with the city grade, and the long-term liquidity decreases with the city level. Farmers are still the main body of the floating population. Younger age, lower education level, low-skilled, high gender ratio employees are the most basic demographic characteristics of the floating population, although there are differences between different cities. The main reason for affecting the floating population is seeking jobs and doing business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year, millions of young people migrate away from their home provinces for higher education and employment in China. However, less is known about the extent to which Chinese young people may benefit economically from their migration. Analyzing nationally representative data from the new China College Student Survey, this paper examines the impact of inter-province migration on the starting salaries of Chinese young people after undergraduate studies. Utilizing the method of propensity score matching, this research reveals differences in the economic returns to migration for higher education and for work, and between young people of rural and urban hukou origins. The economic premium attached to inter-province education migration is largely mediated and thus explained by socioeconomic disparities across Chinese provinces. By contrast, young people's work migration generates a positive economic premium, over and above the wage disparity between sending and host provinces. Underlining the context-dependent nature of the migration premium, the results draw attention to China's institutional features – i.e. the structural configurations of education and work migration and the hukou system – in shaping the economic returns to youth migration. Rural and urban young people's differential access to the migration premium may also exacerbate socioeconomic inequalities in post-reform China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following decades of deep marketization, Chinese housing policy has recently revived public housing provision, stimulating debate over whether China is moving towards a more socialized approach to housing. While such a move represents a remarkable shift in the role of housing as a welfare good or service, little research has considered recent developments in housing from a welfare regime perspective. Indeed, while the salience of housing systems to welfare regimes has been widely recognized in comparative research, this link has rarely been explored in the case of China. This paper applies a welfare regime framework to the historical development of Chinese housing system, and specifically, to empirically examine recent transformations in the housing system through contrasting examples from two Chinese cities: Beijing and Chongqing. The analysis indicates the emergence of a hybrid housing system combining socialist, social-democratic and productivist elements, focused on the chimeric needs of urban populations that are balanced between indigenous city residents and urban migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a brief comment by Lu Xun regarding the thriving café culture in 1920s’ Shanghai as a point of departure, this paper investigates how the male intellectuals of the time constructed, affiliated with, and practiced the café culture in the 1920s and 1930s. The paper first provides a historical overview of Shanghai’s café scene, and it investigates the general relationship between coffee and colonialism. The main body of the paper explores how Shanghai’s café culture in the Republican period was constructed in connection with male subjectivity. The paper demonstrates that the café as a gathering site was attractive to the young and educated male urbanites because it provided them a strong sense of community, based on the mutually conditioning homosocial bonding and heterosexual impulses, where they could socialize among themselves and flirt with the waitresses. It was the maleness of the café that allowed the place to embrace the seemingly opposed discourses of consumerism and revolution – the two major components of China’s cultural modernity. The paper ends with Michel de Certeua’s analysis of the ‘habitable,’ and it demonstrates that the Shanghai café is habitable to male intellectuals because it both promises and rejects the consummation of the libido, in the same way as it promises and rejects modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of 108 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2018, the carbon emission effect of urban density was studied by establishing a dynamic panel model. We found that there was a significant negative correlation between urban density and carbon emissions, and the increase in urban density reduced carbon dioxide emissions. The nonlinear estimation results of urban density and carbon emission show that urban density has different impacts on carbon emission at different urban population levels. With the increase in population size, the carbon emission reduction effect brought by urban density growth decreases. In medium-sized cities, increased urban density leads to the greatest reduction in carbon emissions, followed by large cities with populations of less than 5 million. In megacities with a population size of more than 5 million, the carbon emission reduction effect of urban density is not significant. Our conclusion supports the proposition of building compact cities and provides decision support for the ideal of 'beautiful China' in the process of urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study constructs a panel extended linear expenditure system (ELES) model that includes the theory of internal habit formation and expands the theoretical connotation of the original model. It also decomposes the dynamic evolution characteristics of Chinese urban residents' psychological and physiological needs among various consumption expenditures. It explains the partial causes of the time effect in the panel ELES model from consumer behaviour. We have obtained the following innovative conclusions after the empirical analysis of urban residents' consumption behaviour in different regions of China. First, urban residents have habit formation effects on seven types of consumption expenditure. Second, the timeliness of the psychological needs of various commodity expenditures differs between the eastern and mid-western region of China, and this difference has expanded since 2013. The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced the psychological needs for various commodity expenditures while having little impact on physiological needs. Finally, the study puts forward some policy recommendations, such as tapping the potential of commodity consumption with psychological needs growth, further enhance the cultivation of low-income people's consumption in the mid-western region, and implementing more detailed consumption supports with different regions' consumption preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (MLG) system in urban China is functioned as the last resort safety net for poor people and plays a substantial role in poverty reduction. This paper provides new empirical insights into the MLG development across 31 regions in urban China between 2003 and 2013. In addition to widely used indicators like benefit levels and number of benefit recipients, we construct two indicators of MLG replacement rates to measure the generosity of the benefits relative to income from work. The results show that the development of the urban MLG system in China has followed different tracks before and after 2008. Since 2008, the governments have made great efforts to increase the generosity of the MLG system while put more stringent conditions on MLG beneficiaries. Moreover, since 2008, the generosity levels of the MLG programmes began to converge across regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The educational gradient of health is examined for the rural residents in China. • Educational attainment had a significant and positive correlation with self-rated health. • The education-health correlation was mediated by the effectiveness factors. • People's cognitive skills and material resources fail to play a mediator role. Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine whether and how rural residents' educational attainment is associated with their self-rated health in China. Taking advantage of the National Exercise Facility Survey that was collected between December 2015 and March 2016, we find that educational attainment has a significant and positive correlation with self-rated health, net of the effects of age, gender, and geographical region. This correlation is mediated by factors such as perceived importance of exercise and healthy lifestyle. Relatively, people's cognitive knowledge about health-related information and material resource access fail to play a significant mediating role. The findings highlight the non-material and non-cognitive attributes of educational attainment in shaping the gradient of health in the rural setting of China. Interventions that expand formal education to the mass and optimize teaching contents may offer an effective means to balance the health gradient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines attitudes to tourism and climate change among residents of Hong Kong and evaluates their willingness to voluntarily modify travel behaviours to reduce environmental impacts. Previous studies on environmental behavioural change identified a significant gap between awareness and action, with some studies even suggesting that the most aware individuals are unlikely to change their behaviours. Similar findings were noted in this study. Cluster analysis identified four cohorts of tourists, ranging from the regular international tourist to the least travel active. The regular international tourist group was most aware of global warming and climate change, but least willing to alter its travel behaviour. By contrast, less travel active tourists seem most willing to travel less. The paper concludes that government intervention may be required to create meaningful behavioural change in travel patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One consequence of China's marketisation has been the emergence of a ‘floating population’—rural Chinese who migrate to China's cities to work. Many urbanites have negative attitudes towards such migrants. To understand how these negative attitudes might be ameliorated, the paper employs Allport's influential contact hypothesis to investigate whether urbanite–migrant friendships affect attitudes. More negative attitudes were observed among males and older urbanites. There was no effect of simply knowing a migrant, supporting Allport's thesis that non-intimate contact is not sufficient to affect attitudes. Friendship alone did not influence attitudes, but interaction effects were detected between having migrant friends and each of age, income and education. Negative attitudes were reduced among urbanites in older, higher-income and higher-education groups if they had a migrant friend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a joint deep learning method, namely, confounding factor joint decomposition under counterfactual regression (CFJD-CFR), to identify a minimum adjustment covariate set and estimate the average treatment effect (ATE). CFJD-CFR includes two levels: feature learning and prediction model. Feature learning constructs the objective function based on clear variable attribute recognition criteria to identify and decompose a covariate set of different attributes into four disjoint sets of factors: instrumental, confounding, predicting, and noise variables. The output of feature learning is then introduced into the prediction model as its input to build a joint deep learning model and reduce the systematic errors caused by step-by-step learning. The proposed method combines deep representation learning, feature selection, and prediction under the structural equation modeling framework. Simulation studies show that CFJD-CFR can effectively identify the minimum adjustment covariate set and consistently outperform other methods for ATE estimation. The proposed method is applied to the Chinese General Social Survey study. New insights into the difference in social welfare policy preference between urban and rural residents in China are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive digital financial services should welcome older populations and make them beneficiaries of the digital and financial revolution. To understand older adults' experience of using digital financial tools, we conducted an online survey of 268 older internet users aged 60 or above from urban areas of 14 Chinese provinces after China's nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in 2021. Our results revealed that older internet surfers were active in digital financial activities and engaged most with activities that were highly compatible with their lifestyles. Active users significantly differed from inactive users in sociodemographics, confirming that a digital divide related to social stratification exists among older internet users. Digital finance active users were also distinguished from inactive users' attitudes and perceptions toward digital finance. Logistic regression results indicated that perceived usefulness, access to proper devices for digital finance, risk perceptions, and perceived exclusion if not using technology were associated with their adoption of these advanced tools. Older adults reported the perceived inconvenience of in-person financial services during the lockdown. They also expressed a willingness to participate in relevant training if provided. The findings of this study could help aging-related practitioners to understand older adults' engagement in digital finance and guide policy and project design in the area of financial inclusion of the aging population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using consumer survey data collected through questionnaires in five major urban areas in the People's Republic of China, this article explores consumers' perception, purchase intention, and willingness to pay for premiums of carbon-labelled low-carbon-emission goods and services and in particular, low-carbon electronic devices. The findings indicate that carbon labels work as a reminder of ethical consumption to Chinese consumers; and that as an emerging market where ethical consumption starts to take roots, Chinese consumer market demonstrates some traits that are different from its western counterparts. This study contributes to improving the design of environment-friendly choice architectures used in public behavioural policies, as well as to better understanding consumer behaviours in the contemporary consumer culture where environmental ethics become increasingly mainstream in emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban population size dynamic adjustment has been widely studied for a long time; however, the dynamic adjustment at the urban hierarchy level remains unknown. This study utilises China's urban population data to investigate the dynamic adjustment. Specifically, we utilise methods of the Gini coefficient, linear regression, and coefficients of Spearman, and Moran's I to explore the dynamic adjustment tendency, adjustment rate and correlation of urban population size distribution of different urban hierarchies and groups of different urban hierarchies. We find that the urban population size spatial distribution is gradually even within the same urban hierarchy. The adjustment rate to be even of Megacity II is the highest, and Megacity I is the bottom. We also find the population size spatial distribution of the whole urban system is gradually uneven. We explore the dynamic process by sorting urban hierarchies into six groups. Furthermore, we find there is a complex correlation between different urban hierarchies and global spatial correlation among China cities. These results are valuable as references for Chinese policy-makers and practitioners and will enable them to adopt sustainable land use and urban population management measures. The study outcomes will also benefit future studies on spatial population size distribution in international communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Scarce attention has been paid to the distinct health effects of the three layers of social relations a rural-to-urban migrant is commonly embedded in – local connections with local urban communities, trans-local connections with family and hometown communities, and connections with fellow townspeople in the city who are from the same hometown. This study investigates their respective effects on physical health using the data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamics Survey, China's latest and largest national survey data on rural-to-urban migrants. From regression models with the Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment, the results show that the multilayered embeddedness of the migrant gives rise to differing, even diverging health effects of different types of social relations. While creating ties with local urban communities and maintaining ties with hometown communities are beneficial to migrants' physical health, ties to a larger family and closer ties with fellow townspeople in the city are negatively related to physical health. The findings suggest the multifaceted nature of the linkage between social relations and physical health among migrants. Social relations affect physical health not only in positive ways, but also in negative ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research has conceptualized educational inequalities between migrant and urban youth in China primarily as an issue of differential access to education. Focusing on parenting practices and the intersection of migrant and social class status—and in particular parental education—we use a novel dataset of six-year-olds in Shanghai and show that although migrants, on average, use less effective parenting practices than urbanites overall, these differences reverse, or lessen, after taking parental education into account. Moreover, parental education is more important for both parenting and children's education outcomes for migrant families than urban families, suggesting the differential importance of social class for migrant groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of factors may affect the planning and design of urban infrastructure but urban population usually is the primary consideration given scaling laws between population and infrastructure. Although urban physical spatial form and infrastructure are physically attached, their allometric scaling has not been systematically addressed. In this study, we examine how five types of infrastructure, including roads, water supply pipelines, drainage pipelines, buses, and schools, affect urban spatial form characterized with landscape metrics derived for 78 large cities in China. The results suggest that urban infrastructure has scaling relations with landscape shape index (LSI), area-weighted mean perimeter-area ratio (PARA_AM), and largest patch index. Specifically, at the mean value of PARA_AM, road area increases about 2.5 times when doubling LSI. Under the same population size, cities with more fragmented spatial form need more investments in infrastructure, particularly roads and other traffic components. It is concluded that urban infrastructure experiences a super-linear quantitative relationship with landscape metrics, and a city with a more complex urban form spatially requires more infrastructure. The coefficients of the regression models show a lot of variations but the allometric scaling is meaningful for the planning and design of urban infrastructure. It will be helpful to incorporate ecological landscape metrics into urban planning and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gradual collapse of the work unit system and high population mobility have exacerbated Chinese urban dwellers' life uncertainties, and many have been forced to invest less in their surroundings and become alienated from local life. This study posits that people's passive alienation from local life is mainly due to certain cultural differences at the interpersonal level and a lack of cultural ties at the person-place level. Self-location, self-extension, and self-storage are the three main dimensions of reorganization that Chinese urban dwellers must consider in their local lives. Currently, Chinese urban dwellers' local lives remain in a state of constant flux. Cultural memories of Chinese cities and beliefs regarding future culture continuity could play a role in the reorganization of Chinese urban dwellers' local lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of social pensions on risky household financial asset holding, taking the Urban and Rural Residents Pension Scheme (URRPS) in China as an example. We combine regression discontinuity with the difference-in-difference approach to analyze the 2015 and 2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data. The results show that the URRPS has significantly increased the likelihood of holding risky financial assets among Chinese households. Furthermore, the effect is larger for urban households than for rural households. Apart from social pensions, marital and health status, education, risk attitude, household size, asset value, and urban residence also affect the households' risky financial asset holdings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides some of the first empirical evidence on the role of the labour market in determining individual-level wages and the consequent wage inequalities. Unlike traditional earnings equations that focus on human capital factors, this study follows recent wage theory, the Nash bargaining model, and finds that not only human capital but also the labour market are important factors in determining individual-level wages. Further, this study examines wage inequalities between urban-born workers and permanent rural migrant workers, who constitute a sizable part of all rural migrants in urban China but have been ignored in previous academic studies. Different from temporary rural migrants examined in previous studies, permanent rural migrants share the same citizenship rights and social welfare as urban-born workers. However, we still find that these permanent migrants (classified as talent, land, and 'supported' migrants) face disadvantages in acquiring high wages. Using a developed version of the two-fold Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition based on our theoretical model, we find that the wage inequalities between permanent rural migrants and urban residents are caused by both the workers' education and labour market tightness, as well as the father's employment status, housing prices, and other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapidly aging population has diminished its labor force. This study examines the extent to which the elderly's labor force participation could be enhanced given their health status. Using national aggregated data from the population census for 1990–2015 and survey data from the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study for 2011–2015, we simulated the potential and additional work capacity of China's elderly using methods employed in previous studies. We obtained four main findings. First, a substantial amount of unused work capacity exists in the 60–69 years age group in urban China, accounting for approximately 30% of the potential work capacity. Second, the additional work capacity is greater for urban residents and men than for rural residents and women. Third, the additional work capacity increases for urban men but decreases for rural men and women. Fourth, the change in sensitivity of work to health reduces potential work capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism is a common social behaviour, and is classified differently according to its purpose or destination. Plant-viewing tourism (PVT) and its impact on destinations has been studied; however, research on flower-viewing tourism (FVT) is still deficient. This study investigates the impact of FVT on the perceptions and attitudes of residents in Chengdu city. A questionnaire survey was conducted involving 305 residents. A total of 17 items representing three main dimensions (environmental, economic, and socio-cultural) of explanatory factors were considered after exploratory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the relationship between these dimensions and the attitudes of residents. Results show that residents' positive attitudes towards FVT were associated with the positive response of economic and environmental impacts, but no significant correlation was found between socio-cultural impacts and attitudes. Results are discussed and analyzed in-depth, and three conclusions and policy recommendations of this study are proposed. These results can provide suggestions for future development in cities, formulation of tourism policies, and promotion of sustainable tourism development in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the rank-ordered probit estimation method and data from the 10 Chinese Family Tracking Survey from 1989 to 2015 to systematically study how the family background, especially the parental income, of urban and rural residents in China since its opening affects the intergenerational transmission of income and income inequality. The results show the following: ① The higher the income of parents is, the higher the income of their offspring. When parents are middle income or above, the probability of their children earning an upper-middle or high income increases significantly. ② Although the income of mothers is low, its impact on children's income is greater than that of the father's income. If the mother's income is middle, upper-middle, or high income, it will increase the probability of her children earning a high income by 12.17%, 28.16% and 45.90%, respectively, while the corresponding influence from the father's income is 9.62%, 20.69% and 43.82%. ③ For children, the degree of intergenerational income inequality is greater for women than for men, and it is higher in cities than in rural areas. ④ The intergenerational transmission of income is persistent across multiple generations, but the transmission from parents is much higher than from grandparents. It is also difficult for the offspring of a lower-income couple to obtain a higher income. These conclusions are robust to examining different samples and examining the predicted impact of various measures of family background on the income of offspring. Based on the results, this article puts forward policy recommendations to improve intergenerational income consolidation and reduce income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freshwater systems are vitally important, supporting diversity and providing a range of ecosystem services. In China, rapid urbanization (over 800 million urban population) has led to multiple anthropogenic pressures that threaten urban freshwater environments. Microplastics (<5 mm) result from intensive production and use of plastic materials, but their effects in urban freshwater environments remain poorly understood. Rising concerns over the ecological effects of microplastics have resulted in increased attention being given to this contaminant in Chinese freshwater systems. Some studies provide quantitative data on contamination loads, but in general relevant knowledge in freshwater environment remains narrow in China, and lacking adequate understanding of threshold levels for detrimental effects. Notably, non-standardized sample collection and processing techniques for point and non-point sources have hindered comparisons of contamination loads and associated risk. Meanwhile, legislative frameworks for managing microplastics in China remain in their infancy. This manuscript critically reviews what is known of the nature and magnitude of microplastic pollution in Chinese freshwater environments, and summarizes relevant Chinese legislation. It provides recommendations for improving the legislative framework in China and identifies research gaps that need to be addressed to improve management and regulatory strategies for dealing with microplastic pollution in Chinese urban freshwater environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban structure in China has been transformed profoundly through rounds of economic reforms. Over the past 60 years, various types of neighborhoods have emerged at different stages of economic and social transition. Formed and organized in different ways, these neighborhoods provide distinct economic, social, and physical environments to residents. However, little is known about the link between neighborhood types and the health of residents in urban China. Using longitudinal data from the China Labor-Force Dynamics Survey (2012–2014), we estimate multilevel regression models to predict self-rated health (SRH) while controlling for a lagged measure of SRH. Results show that living in traditional communities in old districts and work-unit compounds for state-owned enterprises is associated with better SRH among older adults (≥50 years old) compared with living in other types of neighborhoods, such as commercial-housing communities and migrant enclaves. Neighborhood types do not matter for the health of younger adults (<50 years old). Neighborhood water quality and distance to facilities are associated with SRH for older adults but do not account for the relationships between neighborhood types and SRH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When China was a low-income country chasing middle-income status, the nation required a labor force that was numerate, literate, and disciplined; China delivered. Salaried work in the formal sector is also a dominant feature of China's middle class, accounting for the income of 70 percent of middle-class individuals.[38] China divides its people into two categories from birth: urban and rural Most of the 900 million people classified as rural in China have been kept out of the middle class largely because the I hukou i system explicitly restricts access to high quality education and healthcare to urban families. China's economy has doubled in size every eight years since 1979, making it over 32 times bigger now then it was then and the second largest in the world today.[1] Four decades of growth have ushered more than 400 million people in China into the global middle class.[2] According to the World Bank, China is currently an upper middle-income country. 13 Li et al., "Human Capital and China's Future Growth"; National Bureau of Statistics of China, I China Statistical Yearbook i (Beijing: China Statistical Press, 2010), http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2010/indexeh.htm. [Extracted from the article]

This study adopts Bourdieu's relational analytical strategy to investigate the relation between lifestyle and social stratification in the Chinese urban population. Multiple correspondence analysis and clustering illuminate a typology of four lifestyles: (1) disengagement from consumer culture, (2) self-restrained consumption of highbrow products, (3) preference for intellectualized and ephemeral leisure activities, and (4) economically and culturally well-established consumer-buyers. A multinomial logistics regression validates the association of lifestyle with cultural and economic capital. Capital structure seems less influential in China than in Western European societies, while generation emerges as a unique differentiator under rapid social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer preference for the mandatory labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods promotes public support for the implementation of GM food policies. This study analyzes consumers' preference for the traceability of GM soybean oil. Survey data were collected through a self-administered survey covering 804 randomly sampled urban residents in the eastern, central and western regions of China. Using a logit model, this analysis examines the impacts of influential factors on consumers' preference for traceability. The results show that about 56.5% of the respondents have a positive preference for the traceability of GM soybean oil. Factors increasing the preference for traceability include a better perception of the attributes of nutrition benefit and potential health risk, perceived inadequacy of simple mandatory labels, more attention paid to food labels, and distrust in the agencies overseeing GM food safety. Enhancing consumers' perceptions of GM-related attributes and awareness of food labels will help improve the mandatory labeling management of GM foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]