In addressing long-term development of rural youth，this article explores the phenomenon and the mechanisms of school dropout for migrant work for rural youth which is currently a common social problem in China．The analysis based on survey data shows that dropout for migrant work is related to the following factors: the distance between rural and urban society，individuals' economic attitude，their perspective on macro-social trends，and their parents' educational concept and method．Other than the structural issue on the urban-rural differences，the decision of rural youth of school dropout for migrant work is made by an economic-rationality-based model．However，dropout for migrant work should not be considered solely as a personal issue of rural youth，but also a social problem that needs to be addressed through policy adjustment．Therefore，it is suggested that a gradient based migration policy be adopted to avoid a single，utilitarian and economically orientated perspective．

There is a transition from high to low degree of satisfaction of perceptions of migration in the destinations for the Three-Gorges migrants.Regression analysis on the factors affecting their perceptions reveals that the adaptation process for the Three-Gorges migrants in the resettled places is divided into three stages:role labeling,role imitating and role assimilating and comparing.In the final stage,feeling of being relatively deprived is a major reason why their degree of satisfaction has gone down.