This paper explores the impact of institutional barriers imposed on internal migrants in China through the hukou system on their subjective well-being at destination by linking reported happiness to family living arrangements. Using the 2011 Dynamic Monitoring Survey of Migrant Population in Urban China, we find that constrained family living arrangements lower migrants’ happiness. In particular, migrant parents separated from their child are more likely to be unhappy. If institutional barriers were to be removed, we predict that the proportion of happier migrants would be increased by 13%, and the effect is greater for women than for men. We also find that rural migrants are more likely to be impacted by family living arrangements than urban migrants and that the effect is the highest for the middle-age group of migrants.
URL : http://www.ferdi.fr/sites/www.ferdi.fr/files/evenements/presentations/demurger_paper.pdf