Changing Roles of Marriage and Family Status for Labor Migration? The Case of Rural China

Weiwen Lai , Bielefeld University
Jing Song, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

China has witnessed a continuous rise of the internal migration of married couples, and some of them move with their children. These migration developments possibly signal men’s and women’s changing considerations of their marital and parenthood responsibilities in relation to migration decisions over time. We focus on one specific type of migration, first labor migration, and examine the gender and birth cohort patterns of how marriage and childbearing are associated with first labor migration among rural-origin individuals born in 1951-2000 in China. Data are drawn from the China Income Household Survey. We calculate the median values for ages at first labor migration, first marriage, and first childbearing, and use discrete-time logistics models to examine whether the roles of marriage and childbearing for first labor migration differ for men and women, and whether they also differ for men and women from different birth cohorts. Both marriage and having children lower men's and women's risks of first labor migration. While childbearing hinder women's first labor migration more than men's, there are no gender differences in the role of marriage in migration outcomes. Childbearing as a constraint for first labor migration grows stronger over birth cohorts for men and women. Using a precision definition of migration and a sample not conditional on migration outcomes, we have demonstrated Chinese men’s and women’s changing patterns of life course events across birth cohorts, and provided fresh evidence showing that childbearing responsibilities become more rather than less constraining for Chinese individuals’ first labor migration over time.

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 Presented in Session P4. Migration, Migrants, and Mobility