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<p>Using Baidu migration big data for China’s Spring Festival travel rush from 2019 to 2024, this study reconstructs pre-, mid-, and post-COVID-19 mobility networks. Exploratory spatial analysis, social network analysis, and an extended gravity model are employed to track the dynamics of inter-city population flows and identify their drivers. Results show that China’s inter-city labor mobility remains relatively stable and continues to concentrate in southeastern city clusters. However, network density has declined and average path length has increased, indicating that flows are becoming more focused on a limited set of cross-regional pairs and that functional differentiation among cities is intensifying. Finally, COVID-19 reshaped the hierarchy of migration determinants: in the post-COVID-19 era, economic factors again dominate labor mobility, while institutional effects recede.</p>

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Did COVID-19 Reshape Inter-city Mobility Patterns in China? Evidence from Spring Festival Travel Rush Mobility Networks

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月14日

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  • Yangtianzheng Zhao,
  • Richard Harris,
  • Ying Gao

摘要

Using Baidu migration big data for China’s Spring Festival travel rush from 2019 to 2024, this study reconstructs pre-, mid-, and post-COVID-19 mobility networks. Exploratory spatial analysis, social network analysis, and an extended gravity model are employed to track the dynamics of inter-city population flows and identify their drivers. Results show that China’s inter-city labor mobility remains relatively stable and continues to concentrate in southeastern city clusters. However, network density has declined and average path length has increased, indicating that flows are becoming more focused on a limited set of cross-regional pairs and that functional differentiation among cities is intensifying. Finally, COVID-19 reshaped the hierarchy of migration determinants: in the post-COVID-19 era, economic factors again dominate labor mobility, while institutional effects recede.