Abstract: In China,where vast migrations occur,discerning if homesickness arises from emotional roots or is institutional in nature is crucial.This article innovatively aims to identify the institutional underpinnings of homesickness,and tests this empirically with thumbs-up big data of short video on the Bytedance platform.The findings reveal that a heightened outflow of cross-provincial migrants from a given city correlates with increased cross-provincial thumbs-up for videos originating from that city,evidencing the presence of homesickness.Furthermore,a stricter residency threshold in the destination city,or a higher proportion of residents holding land in their hometown,drives up the thumbs-up for hometown videos among cross-provincial migrants,outlining the institutional aspect of homesickness.Contrarily,a greater influx of fellow migrants from their hometown diminishes the effect to thumbs-up their hometown videos based on the stringent registered residence threshold,yet magnifies the effect associated with having household land on thumbs-up their hometown.Further analyses indicate that a tightened registered residence threshold and possession of household land act as obstacles to urban integration,whereas a larger number of fellow migrants from hometown significantly enhances their inclination to reside longer in the city.These findings affirm that homesickness is fundamentally shaped by the dual urban-rural system.Enhancing migrants’ urban integration and advancing land reforms could effectively reduce feelings of homesickness,thus promoting urbanization in a more seamless way.