INVOLUNTARY MIGRATION IN CHINA'S THREE GORGES

University Of Alabama At Birmingham, Birmingham AL

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This research proposes to study the short-term impact of involuntary migration on approximately two million Chinese who would be displaced by China's Three Gorges Project (TGP). The specific aims are: 1) to conduct pre- and post-migration surveys of a sample of 1,000 migrants and 500 non-migrants used as controls; 2) to measure the short-term impact of forced migration on migrants' economic, social, and psychological well-being; and 3) to conduct multivariate analyses of pre- and post-migration changes in economic, social, and psychological well-being of the displaced to test hypotheses derived from the stress process paradigm, a model which has been used extensively to relate stressors such as forced migration to economic, social, and psychological outcomes. Using the multi-stage stratified sampling technique, a probability proportional to size sample of 1,500 adults will be selected from an area which covers 79.3 percent of the people that would be affected by the project. Face-to-face structured interviews will be conducted with the sample both before and after migration. Migration impact will be measured by pre- and post-migration differences in outcome variables for migrants, using non-migrants as the control group. Multivariate analyses of outcome variables will be performed using difference model as well as the lagged Y- s regressor model, both of which are widely used for panel data analysis.