Information Grasp and the Well-Being of Relocated Anti-Poverty Migrants: The Perspective of Peer Effects

Background: More than 9.6 million anti-poverty migrants in mainland China have successfully lifted themselves out of poverty, and enhancing their sense of well-being has become a new goal for government agencies. Grasp of information is an essential factor affecting the life decisions, life satisfaction, and sense of well-being of relocated migrants. According to the theory of peer effects, the behavior and decisions of relocated migrants are not only influenced by their grasp of policy information but also by their peers' grasp and application of policy information in the surrounding community. This study aims to explore the impact of policy information on migrants' well-being from the perspective of peer effect.

Methods: Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey design survey covered 9 resettlement communities in 8 counties and 4 cities in a western province of mainland China. A total of 1,285 relocated households were randomly selected for the survey. The survey topics included family demographic information, income and expenditure, follow-up support policies, and the integration situation in the migration destination.

This study mainly utilizes the Ologit model to analyze the impact of policy information on migrants' well-being from the perspective of peer effect. In addition, this study measured the well-being loss-gain caused by peers' information grasp by constructing a well-being loss-gain model. Furthermore, regression analysis and heterogeneity tests were conducted to examine the various correlations between the two factors in different scenarios. Lastly, robustness tests and endogeneity concerns were performed.

Results: The study found that the level of migrants' grasp of policy information has a positive impact on their sense of well-being, while the level of peers' grasp of policy information decreases migrants’ well-being. Furthermore, the well-being loss-gain model revealed an overall well-being loss of 23.3% among migrants. However, the loss varied across different contexts. No well-being loss was observed among the samples who participated in resettlement training, but migrants from socially resource-poor groups experienced a significant loss of up to 30.7%. Finally, a thorough analysis of how peers' grasp of policy information influences migrants' well-being reveals that such a grasp harms migrants' well-being through three distinct channels: income, the quantity of subsequent support measures availed, and information asymmetry.

Implications: The findings of this study have implications for the implementation of large-scale public policies, grassroots rural governance, reduced poverty, and the promotion of social equity. The findings suggest that more items are needed to capture improving migrants’ well-being, including migrants' information literacy, social integration, the compatibility of government assistance and training measures, and the equity of information disclosure.