Generalized trust among rural-to-urban migrants in China : Role of relative deprivation and neighborhood context

Xi CHEN*, Yue LIU, Hua ZHONG*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

China has experienced sizeable internal migration in the past several decades. This research examines the implications of internal migration on generalized trust in China. Using data from the 2014 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS), a nationally representative survey, we compared the level of self-rated generalized trust in strangers among Chinese rural-to-urban migrants, rural nonmigrants, and urban nonmigrants. We further assessed the mediating effects of relative deprivation and neighborhood context in the relationship between migration status and generalized trust. The results show that migrants are less trusting than rural and urban nonmigrants after adjusting for relevant sociodemographic characteristics. The mediation analysis suggests that relative deprivation partially explains the difference in generalized trust between migrants and rural nonmigrants, and it greatly mediates the trust gap between migrants and urban nonmigrants. The neighborhood context largely explains the difference in generalized trust between migrants and rural nonmigrants. Moreover, urban nonmigrants are less trusting than migrants when taking neighborhood context into consideration, which indicates a suppression effect of neighborhood context on the relationship between migrant status and social trust in urban China. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of how social trust changes in the process of internal migration. Policy implications are discussed.
Original languageEnglish
Article number101784
Number of pages14
JournalInternational Journal of Intercultural Relations
Volume94
Early online date15 Mar 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

  • Generalized trust
  • Rural-to-urban migration
  • Relative deprivation
  • Neighborhood context
  • China

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