Can rural labor migration deteriorate urban environment quality? Evidence from China’s 265 cities

• This study establishes an environmental quality evaluation system. • The proportion of rural labor transfer-in cities is higher than transfer-out cities. • Rural labor migration has a positive effect on urban environmental quality. • The spillover effect of RLM on industrial pollution and domestic pollution is vary. • The relationship between RLM and EQ in high-level cities presents a “U” shape. The migration of the rural labor force to urban areas may lead to a significant impact on environmental quality. Most studies focus on whether environmental problems have a reverse effect on labor migration. However, there is a scarcity of research on the impact of large-scale rural labor migration on urban environmental change. In this paper, we employ TOPSIS model based on entropy weight method to measure the environmental quality of 265 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2019. Spatial econometric model is applied in this study to investigate the direct impact and spillover effect of rural labor migration on urban environmental quality. The results show that the proportion of cities with an influx of rural labor every year in all regions is higher than those with an outflow. Over time, there has been a decline in the number of cities with medium and good environmental quality grades, while the number of cities with poor grades has increased. The direct and indirect effects of rural labor migration on environmental quality are positive and present an inverted U-shaped. The increase of rural labor migration in surrounding areas can improve the local environmental quality. For the cities with high-administrative level, there is a U-shaped relationship between the transfer of rural labor force and environmental quality.