Until recently, migration has had a limited role to play in China’s space economy because of central-planning
logic and mechanisms. Mobility increases and economic restructuring since the 1980s, however, call for new
conceptualizations of migration. Using interprovincial migration data from China’s 1990 and 2000 censuses, I
analyze migration rates, migration effectiveness, population growth, net migration flows, and spatial focusing of
migration. The analysis supports the notions that migration is an increasingly effective factor of population
redistribution and that it has a strong relationship with regional development. While these relationships have
been documented in many other parts of the world, they have been less well addressed in the case of China.
Regional divergence in economic development during the 1990s was accompanied by a marked increase in
interprovincial migration and sharply concentrated migration flows, especially from relatively poor central and
western provinces to the rapidly growing eastern region. These results suggest that migration theories that draw
from experiences of capitalist economies may be of increased relevance to China.