A Holistic Approach to Family Life Course Change across 1930–1978 Chinese Birth Cohorts

Family formation in China has undergone dramatic changes. Despite increasing academic attention, few studies have taken a holistic approach to study cohort change in Chinese family life courses. In this study, we assess how family life course patterns and diversity changed across 1930–1978 birth cohorts. Moreover, we evaluate to what extent changing norms, economic constraints, and institutional reforms drove cohort differences. Data from the China Family Panel Studies and sequence analysis are applied to identify family life course patterns and to calculate sequence diversity. While we found a shift in family life course patterns across 1930–1978 birth cohorts, there is no evidence that Chinese family lives have become more diverse. On the contrary, our results demonstrate that family life courses have become relatively standardized around relatively early marriage and a single child. We find that factors associated with economic constraints and educational attainment—not ideational change or institutional reforms—account for a considerable portion of cross‐cohort variation in the diversity of family life courses. Rather than a second demographic transition, the family demographic behavior of 1930–1978 Chinese birth cohorts is marked by continuity despite change.