Impact of Public Health Emergencies on the Willingness of Rural Migrant Workers to Return Home: Evidence from China

In 2022, under the combined influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downturn. The employment landscape is grim, particularly for rural migrant workers, who are under immense pressure to secure employment. This study used structural equation modeling and bootstrapping methods to identify the influencing factors of migrant workers' willingness to return home during public health emergencies and the potential multiple causal relationships, based on 2879 questionnaires on the employment status of migrant workers who are from Chongqing in 2022. The result of this study will be used as a reference by policymakers to formulate employment policies. The results show that: (1) Public health emergencies have no discernible direct impact on people's willingness to return home. However, they have a significant positive effect on hometown belongings and a significant negative effect on income level and employment stability. These effects are ranked in order of influence: sense of belonging to hometown > income level > employment stability. (2) The willingness to return home is significantly impacted negatively by employment stability and income level, but it is significantly positively impacted by hometown belonging, with employment stability having the biggest impact. (3) There is a substantial inverse relation between income level and sense of belonging to hometown; the higher the income level, the stronger the capacity to withstand outside threats, and the greater the propensity to remain employed. (4) Three pathways exist by which public health emergencies affect migrant workers' willingness to return home: "PHE -> ES -> HI", "PHE -> IL -> HI", and "PHE -> ES -> IL -> HI". (5) Income level and employment stability have multiple chain'mediating effects between public health emergencies and the willingness to return home, while only income level plays a partial mediating role between employment stability and the willingness to return hometown.