Urban segregation and food consumption

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of China’s urban segregation caused by hukou restrictions on food consumption. Design/methodology/approach Based on the 2007–2009 Urban Household Survey data from six China provinces conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the authors adopt a propensity score matching (PSM) method to correct for potential selection bias. A Rosenbaum bounds test is applied to evaluate the sensitivity of the PSM results to unobserved variables. Findings The results show that holding rural hukou (RHs) reduces the consumption of livestock products and vegetables and fruit by 8.8 and 4.8 percent, respectively. The status of hukou does not affect the consumption of grain and edible oil. Hukou impacts on food consumption are heterogeneous across income levels, with low-income and middle-income households more vulnerable to urban segregation and hukou discriminations. A stronger motivation for precautionary saving and higher welfare expenditures that not compensated by social security lead to the lower food consumption by migrant households with RHs. Originality/value This paper advances the research frontier by investigating the impacts of hukou system on the structure of food consumption, which accurately reflects the household welfare.

Internet Access and Nutritional Intake: Evidence from Rural China

“…Rural residents' access to the internet is a self-selection process. It could be affected by certain unobserved attributes, including social networks and innate abilities and motivations, which may be correlated with their nutritional intake [39][40][41]. According to the Crown, these problems may cause selection bias and produce endogeneity [42].…”

Internet Access and Nutritional Intake: Evidence from Rural China

“…An access of rural residents to the internet is a self-selection process. It could be affected by some unobserved attributes, including social networks and innate abilities and motivation that may be correlated with their nutritional intake [40][41][42]. According to Crown, these problems may cause selection bias and produce endogeneity [43].…”

“…According to Crown, these problems may cause selection bias and produce endogeneity [43]. This study, thus, adopts a PSM method, which is a semiparametric technique and widely used to solve the problem of selection bias and endogeneity [42,[44][45][46][47]. In fact, PSM method estimates the treatment effects between the treatment group and matched control group of observed characteristics based on propensity scores [48][49][50].…”

Internet Access and Nutritional Intake: Evidence from Rural China

“…Rural residents' access to the internet is a self-selection process. It could be affected by certain unobserved attributes, including social networks and innate abilities and motivations, which may be correlated with their nutritional intake [39][40][41].…”

“…According to Crown, these problems may cause selection bias and produce endogeneity [42]. This study, thus, adopted a PSM method, which is a semiparametric technique and is widely used to solve the problem of selection bias and endogeneity [41,[43][44][45][46]. In fact, the PSM method estimates the treatment effects between the treatment group and a matched control group of observed characteristics based on propensity scores [47][48][49].…”