Residential segregation of migrants: Disentangling the intersectional and multiscale segregation of migrants in Shijiazhuang, China

Abstract

Residential segregation, especially of rural migrants, is of growing concern in China. A key question is whether this spatial separation is entirely due to income – rural migrants priced out of affluent areas – or whether other factors, such as institutional discrimination or social prejudice or homophily, are also at work. We employ state-of-the-art methods to yield a more detailed and nuanced picture of segregation in Shijiazhuang, a second-tier Chinese city. We use a multilevel modelling approach that allows us not only to quantify the extent of segregation at different spatial scales, but also to disentangle the intersectional nature of segregation: the extent to which segregation is due to migrant status or low income alone. We find that migrant status is actually more important than occupation in determining segregation. These findings emphasise the imperative to decompose intersectional segregation into its constituent parts, a task recently made possible by developments in multilevel modelling.