Correlation between Elderly Migrants’ Needs and Environmental Adaptability: A Discussion Based on Human Urbanization Features

Abstract

Building concentrated resettlement community in small towns is mostly used to deal with resettlement construction for rural migrants in economically developed regions in China, which leads to migrants’ living environment changing from rural settlements where production and living are intertwined to an urban community that only supports living functions. However, the urbanized environment is contrary to elderly migrants’ behavior, resulting in contradictions or conflicts between migrants and resettlement communities, reflecting a lack of urbanization synchronization between migrants and resettlement community environments. Further, elderly migrants are also equipped with different degrees and types of urbanization characteristics, thus reflecting different abilities to adapt to the urban community environment. Based on the corresponding relationship between people’s different production and living needs and urbanization, this research starts by investigating the production and living needs of elderly migrants, and further clarifies the environmental adaptability of elderly migrants by sorting the types and characteristics of urbanization of elderly migrants to provide a reference basis for the planning and construction of future resettlement areas. The research uses questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to investigate the population attributes and characteristics of elderly migrants, as well as their different needs for production and living. The research uses hierarchical cluster analysis, the one-way ANOVA test and Chi-square test to constructed a four-quadrant model on human urbanization features: an Urban Group with both living and production urbanized (Group H-H); a Half-urban-half-rural Group with only living needs urbanized (Group H-L); a Half-urban-Half-rural Group with only production needs urbanized (Group L-H); and a Rural group with both living and production needs not urbanized (Group L-L). Finally, based on the results, this research proposed three elderly environment construction orientations of “Promote the Supply Level of Urban Public Services”, “Create a Place That Embodies the Spirit of Immigrants’ Homeland”, and “Moderate Consideration of Agricultural Production Needs” for residential planning.

Becoming Urban Citizens: A Three-Phase Perspective on the Social Integration of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

“…Rural-urban migrants tend to reside in urban villages located in the marginal areas of cities [62]. The urbanized environment reflects a lack of synchronization between migrants and their resettlement community environments [84]. Although these groups often show strong intentions towards intragroup and intergroup social interactions [39,58,85], urban governments' extensive redevelopment schemes tend to impede their social integration by limiting both intragroup and intergroup social ties [58,86].…”

Township, County Town, Metropolitan Area, or Foreign Cities? Evidence from House Purchases by Rural Households in China

“…Despite the fact that cities are so attractive, some rural families refuse to move their registered residences to the cities and instead become "amphibious farmers" [47]. There are three main reasons for this: the first is that they still possess rural assets [22]; the second is that they have their socialization in the countryside [48]; and third, traditional Chinese sentiments, such as "returning to one's roots" and "homeland is hard to leave", become ties to their hometown, especially for the elderly [49,50].…”

“…The population and family environment is an important factor that influences housepurchasing behavior [54]. Chinese traditional culture emphasizes "respecting the old and caring for the young", and older parents and children can play a role in the settlement of prime-age farmers [49]. Therefore, we use dependency ratio as its indicator.…”

Public Space Planning in Urban Resettlement Community in China: Addressing Diverse Needs of Rural Migrants through Function Programming Based on Architectural Planning Theory

“…(2) The second step is based on behavior research. It constructs a "production-living" need analysis dimension, conducts a need questionnaire survey with elderly migrants in resettlement community L, and establishes a coupling model based on production and living needs through systematic clustering and chi-square analysis [18]. This model reveals the differentiated characteristics of production and living needs of elderly migrants with different population attributes, reflecting their complex urbanization level; that is, some migrants are less urbanized in production and thus exhibit a strong need for production factors that can "obtain economic income," while some migrants are highly urbanized in terms of living factors and thus have diversified demands for public service facilities.…”

“…The evaluation and cognition of rural migrants' needs form the basis for constructing suitable function programming. To understand their needs, the authors have already proposed distinct categories for the production and living needs of rural migrants by analyzing their behavior and the spatial heterogeneity of resettlement communities in previous research [17] and constructed a "production-living" need coupling model framework (Figure 1) that reveals the existence of four different types of rural migrants-Type H-H, Type H-L, Type L-H, and Type L-L-based on their needs derived from environmentalbehavior theory (Appendix A) [18]. Function programming is structured based on rural migrants' needs; however, a complex translation mechanism exists [19].…”