Why China would be wise to analyse its Lunar New Year travel data

The post-pandemic trend of the young and mobile increasingly moving out of megacities is shaping the country’s urbanisation and regional development
Data from the annual travel rush starting next month will provide vital input for Beijing’s future urban planning

Winston Mok

Published: 7:30pm, 23 Jan 2024

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In the next few weeks, we will again witness what has been called the world’s largest annual human migration – China’s Lunar New Year holiday travel. Compared to a decade ago, the traffic radiating from China’s megacities is expected to diminish, replaced by denser intra-provincial traffic.

Nearly two-thirds of China’s population live in cities today. With the nation now on the final lap of its urbanisation journey, it is vital for officials to rigorously fine-tune regional planning using detailed analytics.

Shaped by different forces, populations in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have peaked. Young people are leaving the biggest cities in search of affordable housing and a more balanced lifestyle – if they are not “lying flat”. As more youth become freelancers, those who are engaged in live-streaming e-commerce or social media may still stay in large cities but not necessarily the biggest ones. Amid China’s ageing population, some retirees are also moving out of the biggest cities.

Inland cities, from Wuhan to Chengdu, are on the rise while Dongguan and Foshan have become more complementary to Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Interconnected infrastructure means the Greater Bay Area’s municipalities are now more integrated.

On the surface, the trend may appear to mirror the dispersion of knowledge workers in the US from the coasts to inland cities. Post pandemic, there has been a global shift towards remote working and lower city densities, with tier-2 and tier-3 cities growing at the expense of tier-1 cities. But while affordability and lifestyle choices may be common forces in both the US and China, a unique set of factors is at play in China.

First, China’s superb infrastructure has enabled the emergence of interconnected urban systems, such as the Greater Bay Area, which knit together urban clusters and satellite cities into cohesive metro areas.

People take photos of the Guangzhou Baiyun Railway Station on December 26. The “super station” connecting several main lines is a key station in the Greater Bay Area. Photo: Xinhua

In parallel, more people are moving away from China’s megacities. Inland cities such as Chengdu have emerged as attractive alternatives to Shanghai. Yet, in a uniquely Chinese context, such dispersion is less a foray into new territory than a homecoming.

Migrant workers who once congregated in the bustling Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta areas are returning to their home regions. But, rather than going back to their rural villages, they more often than not settle in the burgeoning urban centres near their hometowns. This is why the rural population continued to decline last year while the number of urban residents climbed by 12 million.

China’s pool of almost 300 million migrant workers is ageing, with an average age of 42.3 in 2022. Without full access to social services in the cities where they work, their stay can only be temporary.

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The share of residents with local hukou (household registration) ranges from 33 per cent in Shenzhen to 64 per cent in Beijing. Even graduates from Tsinghua University would find it tough to settle as permanent residents in Beijing. China’s megacities do not welcome migrant workers who overstay their sojourns as guest workers.

But while the barriers to settling in the largest metropolises may be insurmountably high, there are expanding options in smaller cities (often quite large by world standards), which are competing for talent. In recent years, China has gradually relaxed its hukou policies, giving people more options on where to settle, including in urban centres near their hometowns.

Hukou policies aside, the property crisis that left many pre-sold flats unfinished has held back the trend. People who once dreamed of settling in more affordable cities now find themselves paying mortgages for properties whose completion, already long delayed, remains uncertain. In this construction-fuelled urbanisation, buyers should not find themselves paying the price of property developers’ expansionary excesses.

In China, regional competition is not without central coordination. In response to the unbalanced growth unleashed by Deng Xiaoping’s special economic zones, Beijing has been trying for more than a decade to close the development gaps, using regional strategy as its key policy lever. Its efforts to coordinate regional development – from the Yangtze economic zone to the Greater Bay Area – have met with mixed success.

Beyond vision from the top, China could make better use of the science of big data. People movements during the Lunar New Year will reflect changing urbanisation trends. As such, they offer an unparalleled lens to decipher the patterns of urban reconfiguration.

The data harvested from the traffic patterns would provide a rich vein of insights for policymakers, allowing for a nuanced understanding of the multidirectional dynamics of migration. The emerging patterns could validate the steady progress towards a more balanced urbanisation and highlight gaps in development.

An aerial photo shows bullet trains at a depot in Nanjing, in Jiangsu province, on January 17, 2022. The data harvested from the Lunar New Year travel patterns would provide a rich vein of insights for policymakers. Photo: Xinhua

This data-driven approach to analysing the Lunar New Year travel patterns could inform future urban planning and regional policy. Analysing the push and pull factors that shape people movements would enable Beijing to optimise its regional development strategy beyond a top-down vision and align it with emerging bottom-up patterns. By acknowledging the complexities in the ebbs and flows of migration, China can tailor its policies to meet the shifting needs of a population in flux.

The spread of China’s urbanisation is a tale unfolding every year, written in the journeys of millions of people during the Spring Festival. It is a tale that holds the key to understanding the intricate dance between going and returning. With their fingers on the pulse of China’s massive population, policymakers will be able to guide the nation’s regional development with strategies that are grounded in the experiences of its citizens.

Winston Mok, a private investor, was previously a private equity investor