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This article addresses three main issues: the relationship between commute time and sickness absence, the heterogeneity of the commuting–absenteeism effect between rural migrants and urban citizens, and the effect of China’s Hukou system on the commuting–absenteeism effect. It applies a unique set of employer–employee matched data in China and a zero-inflated negative binomial model. We find clear evidence that a longer commuting time contributes to an increase in sickness absence. The heterogeneity of the commuting–absenteeism effect can also be confirmed: longer commuting leads to higher absence rates for urban citizens but not for rural migrants. Furthermore, we explore the effect of commuting on a set of health-related outcomes. The estimations demonstrate that commuting time has a significant impact on health-related outcomes for both migrants and urban citizens, but unequal access to housing provision and to social health insurance in the Hukou system may mean that rural migrants resort to more informal medical services and thus lack access to the official sickness certificate required to seek legal sickness absence. We recommend accelerated reform of the Hukou system to encourage rural workers to seek appropriate and timely medical services, thereby reducing public health risks. JEL Codes: I12, I14, J83, N35, N75

China's recent waves of internal migration, primarily rural to urban reflect a rapidly urbanizing society. However, how to settle down the migrants to promote the process of urbanization, housing problem has become a central topic among scholars. This article mainly reviews the present situation of migrant housing in urban China from four aspects, such as housing choice, spatial distribution of residence, housing condition and housing satisfactory. Based on residential segregation and social exclusion theory, the research finds that the country's unique institutional factors, particularly the existing household registration system, together with the individual characteristics, contribute to the overall poor conditions of migrant housing. Thus, several effective measures should be implemented to improve the living standard of migrant housing.

Based on the survey of the National Dynamic Monitoring of the Floating Population of China in 2014, this paper applies ordered logit model to present statistical evidence showing how residential difference can lead to variations in the probabilities of settlement of the floating population. The empirical results show that the residential difference is positively related to the settlement intensions of migrant workers. Specifically, the probability of settlement for the people who live in commercial housing is the highest, followed by those living in government subsidized housing and rental private housing, while those living in work unit housing is the lowest. Therefore, in order to promote the process of urbanization, we should respect migrants' settlement intensions and achieve the goal of their permanent settlement by improving the multi-level residential pattern and establishing a multiple security housing supply systems.

Background Most of employees in urban China have experienced a heavy commuting burden,which has become an urgent issue that should be solved in the process of new urbanization strategy. However, not only has the exploration of relationship between the commuting and sickness absence been still scant in China, but also there is no discussion made to analyze the mechanism linking the commuting time and sickness absence. To address these gaps, this study firstly investigates the commuting-absence effect as well as the potential transmission channel between them. Methods Using a unique dataset of 2013 Matched Employer-Employee Survey (CMEES) in China, we apply the zero-inflated negative binomial model to explore the nexus between the commuting and sickness absence. To discuss the potential mechanism linking commuting and sickness absence in the context of China, the estimations of the commuting on health-related outcomes and work efforts are performed by the OLS and Logit regression to discuss the mechanism. Results The empirical results reveal that the commute has a positive effect on sickness absence, while it is still robust against several specifications. More importantly, the commuting-absence effect is mainly transmitted through health-related outcomes of employees, whereas we find no clear evidence supporting the shirking behaviors. Additionally, the heterogeneous effects of commuting-absence are differentiated across the Hukou status, gender, transportation modes, scale of cities and types of enterprises. Conclusion The longer commute induces to lower productivities through the sickness absence, that is, the longer journey from home to work is positively related with the increasing sickness absence, which keeps in consistency with previous studies. And the potential effect of commute-sickness absence is mainly transmitted through their health-related outcomes. Additionally, the impacts of commute time on sickness absence are differentiated across the Hukou status, gender, transportation modes, scale of cities and types of enterprise.