Development and Validation of the Social Integration of Migrants Scale in China

Despite the Chinese government’s efforts to promote social integration, migrants continue to face considerable obstacles in adapting to the urban life. These obstacles arise not only from the constraints of the hukou system, but also from the difficulties in sociocultural adaptation. While the literature on social integration is extensive, there remains a lack of a comprehensive and cohesive framework for assessing social integration of migrants in China. This study addresses this gap by developing the Social Integration of Migrants Scale (SIMS), an instrument designed to capture the multifaceted nature of migrant integration in urban China. Using a sample of 600 migrants from Shenzhen, China, the SIMS was tested for reliability, factorial validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The results demonstrate the strong internal consistency of the scale. Factor analyses identified six key dimensions of integration: economic integration, acculturation, perceived discrimination, social relationships, civic engagement, and identity integration. The findings provided initial evidence of convergent and discriminant validity based on the scale’s internal structure. The SIMS thus offers a promising multidimensional instrument for assessing the integration of migrants within Chinese urban contexts, with external criterion validation identified as a priority for future research.