The Impacts of Urban Migrant Populations on Public Services and Corresponding Governance Suggestions

• Zetong Liu

  Author

This study investigates the multi-dimensional impacts of China’s massive rural-to-urban migration on public service delivery and urban governance. By systematically reviewing official statistics, municipal yearbooks, community interview records, and policy documents, we identify four interlocked survival dilemmas—unstable employment, inadequate housing, restricted access to education/healthcare, and weak social integration—that collectively erode migrants’ well-being. We further demonstrate that these dilemmas impose significant fiscal, operational, and social strains on receiving cities, traceable to institutional (hukou segregation), planning (static population baselines), fiscal (revenue-expenditure mismatch), and socio-cultural (intergroup prejudice) causes. Unlike prior studies that treat these dimensions separately, our integrated analytical framework reveals how they reinforce each other, creating a vicious cycle of exclusion. The paper proposes a phased governance roadmap: short-term emergency relief (e.g., portable welfare vouchers), medium-term service-capacity expansion linked to real-time population heatmaps, and long-term hukou reform coupled with inclusive cultural campaigns. These insights offer both theoretical advancement—by bridging public administration, urban sociology, and fiscal federalism—and actionable policy guidelines for achieving public service equalisation in megacities.

• JAESD000033.pdf