Signals from home: how migrants’ hometowns shape perceived social exclusion

This paper examines how local residents form beliefs about internal migrants and how these beliefs translate into perceived social exclusion in destination cities. Using nationally representative data from China, it documents systematic differences in perceived exclusion across migrants from different hometowns, even after controlling for personal characteristics including education and occupation. The paper then studies a belief-formation framework in which perceived acceptance reflects both individual-level information and origin-based priors linked to migrants’ hometown economic reputation. Dialect distance and social participation affect how much residents rely on personal information, while crowding in the destination city raises the standard for acceptance. The results suggest that information frictions are an important source of origin-based exclusion, and imply that policies improving interaction and information flow can substantially mitigate it.