The socio-economic dynamics of urbanization in China: Inequalities, child health and development

The proposed fellowship study will expand on my PhD project about parental migration and its influence on children's health and wellbeing in China by considering an important macro contextual factor - rapid urbanization. It aims to examine how rural-urban disparity in child health changes during the process of China's urbanization. I aim to achieve five main objectives during this one-year fellowship: 1) To disseminate findings from my PhD to both academic and non-academic audiences; 2) To build networks and partnerships with academic institutions and non-academic users across sectors in China to develop proposals for future grant calls; 3) To produce publications in order to help establish a track record in the area of migration and urbanization and their influence on population health and wellbeing; 4) To receive specialised training, e.g., communication, translation and dissemination, policy analysis and further advanced methods to make me a well-rounded researcher; 5) To provide an excellent step towards establishing my academic career in the area of migration and urbanization and their impacts on population health and wellbeing.
China has seen rapid urbanization in the last three decades, with the proportion of urban population rising from 18 percent (172.45 million) in 1978 to 51 percent (690.76 million) in 2011. Unlike Western and former socialist countries, China's rapid urbanization is not merely driven by spontaneous rural-urban migration, but also partly planned by the government that has maintained an urban bias in favour of urban residents to preserve regime stability. China's household registration (hukou) system officially segregates its population into 'urban residents' born in urban areas and 'rural residents or peasants' born in rural areas. These are the status markers in contemporary China, and entail different state welfare entitlements. The hukou system is the most crucial institutional arrangement that has affected individuals' life chances and socio-economic well-being in China. The process of China's rapid urbanization may cause the unequal distributions of socio-economic resources and life chances among its population, thus contributing to rural-urban health inequalities.
It has been suggested that targeting at childhood or early years of life has the potential to reduce health inequalities within one generation. The consequences of urbanization on child health in terms of physical health and psychosocial well-being are likely to be mixed. Children may benefit from improved economic status, better access to healthcare, sanitation, and better nutrition. However, rapid environmental, economic and social changes that follow urbanization may put children in risky situations such as environmental hazards, stressors, and unhealthy diets and lifestyles. The effect of urbanization on child health may differ according to the degree of urbanization because, for example, rural, newly urbanized communities and settled urban can be associated with different risk factors of child health and development.
Despite well documented rural-urban inequalities in child health in China, there are few attempts to examine how this relationship changes during the process of China's urbanization and possible mechanisms. Previous research has tended to study socioeconomic status, urbanization and child health separately in a cross-sectional fashion and failed to examine the dynamic socioeconomic inequalities in child health in a rapidly urbanizing society. This proposed fellowship aims to explore the dynamics of socioeconomic inequalities in child health and development by considering important macro contextual factors-rural-urban migration and rapid urbanization in China. Findings will provide a sound evidence base to inform decision-making in public health and social welfare to tackle health and welfare inequalities among children in China and other developing countries with rapid urbanization and internal migration.