Abstract Using data from a representative survey of migrants in Fujian Province, a major migrant destination in China, this paper examines the continuity and change in the settlement intention in the cities between the two generations of migrants under a comprehensive theoretical framework incorporating Piore's dual labour market theory, the theory of new economics of labour migration, and other theoretical and empirical research results concerning conditions for the existence and transformation of circular and temporary migration. The results suggest that while the characteristics of the new generation migrants are indeed different from those of the first generation migrants and this has resulted in the former's higher settlement intention in the cities, such differences are often exaggerated. On the whole, the majority of both generations of migrants still do not regard cities as their final destination, and there are still more similarities than differences between the two generations of migrants in this regards. The paper also examines factors affecting the continuity and change in the settlement intention in the cities between the two generations of migrants, arguing that it is constrained not only by the hukou system, but also other structural factors. These include the dominant role of labour intensive industries in China's current economic development, the concentration of migrant workers in the secondary sector of the segmented dual labour market, the unstable employment and low social insurance coverage for migrants, and their limited capability to live in cities, all of which constitute constrains for the dominant migration patterns of both generations of migrants to transform from temporary ones to permanent ones.
2012, Vol. 27 
