Chinese Mobile Youth’s Intentions to Stay in the City

In the new era, the motivation of young migrant white-collar and blue-collar workers to stay in cities is different. Through in-depth interviews, we found out that economic factors have different attraction mechanisms for migrant youth to stay in Shanghai. Income level is the most direct factor for migrant youth’ decision-making, but white-collar workers still pay more attention to the prospects of urban development. Social integration has different effects on the retention mentality of migrant youth as well. High-quality urban integration promotes the willingness of white-collar workers to stay in the city, and the weak sense of urban belonging of blue-collar workers does not hinder their urban retention decision-making. Living conditions have different push and pull effects on migrant youth staying in cities. White collar workers have better living conditions and can purchase real estate, so as to complete the process of citizenization*. Blue collar workers cannot buy real estate and have poor living conditions, so it is easy to push them out of the city. Policy factors also have different bonding effects on migrant youth’s residence. The policy has bonded high-quality white-collar workers and promoted their strong willingness to stay. However, it has squeezed blue collar workers to a certain extent, but it has no obvious effect on their decision-making and willingness to stay. Migrant young white-collar workers comprehensively measure various factors to determine whether to stay, while migrant young blue-collar workers mainly decide whether to stay based on income level. The decision-making and willingness of the new generation of migrant youth to stay in cities have tended to be reasonable. Based on this, this paper puts forward the idea of ‘tripartite promotion’ to promote the rational flow of youth.