The settlement intention of floating population and the factors in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: An analysis from the perspective of short-distance and long-distance migrants

The floating population has become an important driving force of population growth in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in recent years, and thus the settlement intention of the floating population is of vital importance to the sustainable urbanization of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Based on the data of China's floating population dynamic monitoring survey in 2017, this paper measured the settlement intention of the floating population in the study area, and according to their migration source of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area, and distinguished the short- and long-distance floating population, and then compared their settlement intentions. Following this, we built a multi-level logistic regression model to analyze the underlying driving forces of the settlement intentions of the floating population as well as the possible differences between the short- and long-distance floating population. The main findings are as follows: (1) The overall settlement intention of the floating population in the plateau area was not high, and only about 32% of the floating population intend to stay in the urban areas for a long time; except for Lhasa, Xining and Haixi, that proportion is only about 10% of the prefecture units. (2) The settlement intention of the short-distance floating population was significantly higher than that of the long-distance floating population, but the percentages of the short-distance floating population with long-term settlement intention in most prefecture units were still less than 20%. (3) Education level, income level, urban medical insurance, social integration, economic development level and natural conditions of the inflow destinations have significant influence on the settlement intention of the floating population. (4) The difference of settlement intention between short- and long-distance floating population was closely related to the migration motivation and the social integration. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that it is necessary to take targeted measures to improve the settlement intention of the short- and long-distance floating population in terms of the influencing factors, and also explore the suitable urbanization pattern for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area, such as promoting the local urbanization. © 2021, Science Press. All right reserved.