  Based on a nationwide labour-force survey data, this paper investigates the
influence of cultural variance on migrants' settlement intention in China. By
using dialectal distance as a proxy for cultural distance, we find strong
evidence for the negative effects of cultural distance on migrants' settlement
intention. By further investigation into sub-samples separated by gender,
generation and higher education experience, we find that the influence is less
effective for younger migrants and higher-educated migrants, which indicates
that the impact of cultural barrier may gradually diminish with the integration
of society and promotion of education.
