Anti-urbanization and rural development: Evidence from return migrants in China

There is a noticeable trend toward return migration in both developed and developing countries, including China. Nonetheless, return migration in China has received relatively scant scholarly attention. It is underexplored whether return migrants and local workers are complements or substitutes. In this study, we develop a theoretical model to disclose the mechanism of return migration on villagers. Using a novel self-collected nationwide household survey dataset combining agricultural production and income information in rural China, we examine how return migrants affect rural household income, including income growth, relative income, and expected income growth. The results show that return migrants negatively impact rural household income. This impact is driven by the competition effect and the spillover effect between return migrants and local villagers. We also analyze the identities of return migrants before and after returning to distinguish the transmission channels. Our findings suggest that the government should persist in its encouragement of urbanization and promote return migrants to carry out work that complements local villagers.