Unrealised aspiration: Migrants’ intergroup relations in China

Although migrants wish to make friends with local urbanites, they may not eventually realise their aspirations. This paper considers the mismatch between migrants’ intention and intergroup relations in China to reveal the gap between aspirations and outcomes. The instrumental variable results suggest that residing in migrant-concentrated neighbourhoods can lead to a gap between migrants’ aspired and real intergroup relations. This confirms the negative role of neighbourhood ethnic concentration in a domestic migrant context. Moreover, having a rural hukou indirectly hinders migrants from bridging the gap by lowering their socioeconomic status, demonstrating the disadvantage of rural migrants in the socialisation field. We highlight that migrants in China continue to face the challenges to achieving their integration aspirations. • We study the gap between migrants' aspired and real intergroup relations. • Migrants living in migrant-concentrated neighbourhoods are more likely to face such gap. • Rural hukou indirectly leads to the gap by lowering migrants' socioeconomic status.