Ancestors call me home: Cultural distance and settlement intention of domestic migrant workers in China.

Abstract

Employing data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this paper investigates how deep-rooted cultural distance—measured by genetic distance between domestic migrants' origin and destination cities—affect their settlement intention. Our findings reveal that greater genetic distance significantly reduces domestic migrant workers' local identity in their current cities, thereby hindering their intention to settle. This causal effect prevails after controlling for other dimensions of inter-city cultural distance. This deterrent effect is particularly pronounced among migrants with lower educational attainment, those migrating from rural to urban areas, or those without a family history of domestic migration. Additionally, migrants facing greater cultural distance tend to report shorter expected settlement durations and a stronger intention to return to their hometown.