County-Level New Urbanization, Family-Based Migration, and Household Consumption: Evidence from Central and Western China

【Authors】

YANG Dan, DING Heng

【WorkUnit】

Southwest University, 400716.

【Abstract】

China’s economy is at a stage of transitioning toward new growth drivers and high-quality development, making domestic demand increasingly important. Conventional stimulus policies have delivered short-term gains, but they struggle to foster stable, long-term expectations for consumption growth. As the primary pathway to Chinese modernization, new urbanization holds the greatest potential for expanding domestic demand.
With the advancement of county-level new urbanization, the proportion of rural-to-urban migrants in central and western China has continued to rise. However, existing literature rarely explores changes in household consumption from the micro-perspective of “family-based migration.” To address this gap, this paper utilizes data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) from 2012 to 2018 and employs a Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach to evaluate the impact of county-level new urbanization pilot projects on household consumption. 
Our findings are as follows. First, the policy’s promoting effect on household consumption is asymmetric: household consumption increases significantly under family-based migration, while changes among individual and semi-family migrants are statistically insignificant. Second, mechanism analysis reveals that this consumption increase is not primarily driven by income growth. Instead, it operates mainly by improving county-level education and strengthening migrants’ intentions for long-term settlement. Third, heterogeneity analysis shows that the consumption boost is more pronounced among households with greater educational needs, those with more children migrating with them, new-generation migrant workers, and those relocating over shorter distances. Furthermore, the policy effect exhibits institutional dependence: the marginal promoting effect on household consumption is more pronounced in areas with higher household registration (hukou) barriers.
The characteristics discussed in this paper, such as family-based migration, new-generation migrant workers, and short-distance migration, reflect a transition in the central and western regions from the traditional “semi-worker, semi-farmer” model to “local urbanization,” characterized by family-based migration into county seats. A deeper understanding of this dynamic trend provides valuable insights for explaining current macroeconomic phenomena in China and for formulating relevant policies. By grounding the analysis in this trend, this study provides micro-level empirical evidence on how county-level new urbanization reshapes household economic behavior and offers constructive insights for policy optimization.

JEL: D10, J61, R28

【KeyWords】

Children’s Accompanying Migration, Household Consumption, County-Level New Urbanization, Family-Based Migration, Staggered Difference-in-Differences