多维距离对流动人口回流意愿的影响及群体异质性

人口回流正成为中国人口流动的重要趋势，并将深刻影响中西部及沿海地区的发展前景。本文从地理学的“距离”视角切入，在传统人口迁移理论的基础上，将两个非经济因素的距离维度，即制度距离和文化距离引入人口回流研究，构建了多维距离影响流动人口回流意愿的理论框架，并运用全国层面的流动人口调查数据进行实证分析。结果发现：与理论预测一致，流入地与户籍地间的多维距离对流动人口的回流意愿具有显著的影响。经济距离抑制了流动人口的回流，而地理距离、制度距离和文化距离均对人口回流产生促进作用。在考虑了解释变量可能存在的测量误差后，这一发现依然稳健。此外，多维距离对回流意愿的影响因流动人口个体及所在城市特征的差异而不同。个体异质性方面，随着流动人口年龄的增长和文化水平的提高，经济距离对回流意愿的影响不断增强，而地理距离的影响则逐渐减弱。城市异质性方面，随着城市人口规模的增加，制度距离对回流意愿的促进作用不断减弱；城市经济水平的提高则弱化了地理距离对回流意愿的正向效应。

Return migration intention: Heterogeneous effects from multidimensional distances over space

Decades of urbanization and economic growth in central, western and coastal regions of China have transformed the increasing flow of return migration across places, which exerted a profound impact on regional development prospects. Thus, elaborating the return motivation of internal migrants is of great theoretical and practical significance. From the perspective of "distance" in geography, this paper introduces two additional non-economic dimensions of distance, namely, cultural and administrative distances, between places of destination and origin into the study on migrants' return-to-hometown intention, and focuses on the effects from cultural, administrative and economic borders on return intention. Our measurement combines dialect, geographical and socio-economic datasets with a theoretical framework of multidimensional distances that influence return migration intention. We conduct an empirical analysis using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey and the method of logistic regression modeling. The results show that multidimensional distances between places of destination and origin exert a significant impact on the return intention of migrants, which is consistent with the theoretical predictions. Economic distance restrains return migration intention, while geographic, administrative, and cultural distances promote the intention of migrants to return. This finding remains robust after accounting for possible measurement errors in explanatory variables. The estimated effects of multidimensional distances on return intention vary with the characteristics of individual migrants and destination cities. In terms of individual heterogeneity, the negative effect of economic distance on return migration intention increases, whereas the positive influence of geographic distance gradually decreases with increases in the age and level of education of migrants. In terms of urban heterogeneity, the promoting effect of administrative distance on return intention tends to decrease, and the improvement of urban economic level decreases the positive effect of geographic distance on return intention with the increase of urban population size. This study strengthens the understanding of the phenomenon of return migration under "human-environment" interactions, and helps to enrich the study of migration in geography.