Living Environment and Well-Being of in-Situ Urbanized Rural Residents in Chinese Cities

China’s urbanization is unprecedented in human history and the National New-Type Urbanization Plan (2014-2020) clearly features a new era of development. Under such circumstance, we are developing a policy-driven quasi-experimental household survey that takes advantage of the implementation of the 2014 National New Urbanization Comprehensive Pilot Program. The survey targets residents of newly urbanized areas in 32 township-level administrative units (zhens and jiedaos) under county-level cities and urban districts. Half are drawn from the ‘treatment’ group (i.e., jiedaos, zhens, and xiangs listed in the 2014 National New Urbanization Comprehensive Pilot Program). The control group consists of 16 cases that are chosen using the Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) technique.

We are particularly focusing on the living environment and health status and socio-psychological well-being of in-situ urbanized rural residents’ experiences and compare them to the experiences of rural-to-urban migrants and established urban hukou residents residing in the same areas:

• Living environment—to discover the housing conditions, the living environment changes, and the extent to which in-situ urbanized rural residents have adapted to the new urban life style;
• Health status and socio-psychological well-being—to gain an understanding of the in-situ urbanized rural residents’ general health status, mental problems, perceived social position, perceived discrimination, sense of identity, and sense of urban citizenship.

This study offers a comprehensive and nuanced examination of the changes in the living environments and lifestyles of in-situ urbanized rural residents, and the effects of such changes on their well-being. With the policy-driven quasi-experimental survey design, the study yields rich materials for analyzing Chinese urbanization and also makes a valuable contribution to other related policy reforms.