ABSTRACT
Family life in China has changed extensively since the founding of the People’s Republic. This may be seen in the trends towards later marriage, lower fertility and smaller households. This chapter discusses the family characteristics of internal migrants to urban areas in China and the influence of family considerations as direct and indirect causes of movement. A particular concern is the association between migration and life cycle events that mark the transition points in individual and family experience. Statistics on family characteristics in the Survey include family type, relationship to the head of the household, number of children ever born and marital status. Information on the relationship of family members to the household head confirms the pervasive simplicity in the structure of urban family dwellings, most of which, in a Western context, would be regarded as variations on a nuclear family structure. Family welfare is a latent factor in migration to cities in China.
