IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v43y2011i9p2164-2185.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Migration and Split Households: A Comparison of Sole, Couple, and Family Migrants in Beijing, China

Author

Listed:
  • C Cindy Fan
  • Mingjie Sun
  • Siqi Zheng

    (Institute of Real Estate Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

Abstract

The practice of split households among rural–urban migrants in China has persisted for more than twenty years. In this paper we compare three forms of split households, differentiated by whether the migrant's spouse and children are left behind or have joined the migrant: sole migration, couple migration, and family migration. Our survey of fifty chengzhongcun (urban villages) in Beijing conducted in 2008 shows that couple migration and family migration are outcomes of rural Chinese actively rearranging their household division of labor in order to maximize earnings from urban work opportunities. Migrants' decision to leave the children behind or to bring them along depends on the children's age and whether migrants' parents are available to help. Contrary to expectation, more household members in the city signals neither stronger intention to stay nor greater trust in the host society. These findings highlight the importance of thinking about migrants as circulators and thinking about migration, including family migration, as not necessarily a prelude to permanent settlement. They also underscore the need to address the experiences of long-term split households, a discourse that has received much less attention than one that assumes that a family lives together most of the time.

Suggested Citation

  • C Cindy Fan & Mingjie Sun & Siqi Zheng, 2011. "Migration and Split Households: A Comparison of Sole, Couple, and Family Migrants in Beijing, China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(9), pages 2164-2185, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:9:p:2164-2185
    DOI: 10.1068/a44128
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a44128
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a44128?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nelson, Joan M, 1976. "Sojourners versus New Urbanites: Causes and Consequences of Temporary versus Permanent Cityward Migration in Developing Countries," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(4), pages 721-757, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuting Cao & Ran Liu & Wei Qi & Jin Wen, 2020. "Spatial Heterogeneity of Housing Space Consumption in Urban China: Locals vs. Inter-and Intra-Provincial Migrants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-26, June.
    2. Yang Chen & Hongsheng Chen & Jinhua Liu, 2019. "Household Split, Income, and Migrants’ Life Satisfaction: Social Problems Caused by Rapid Urbanization in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-12, June.
    3. Bo Li & Qingfeng Cao & Muhammad Mohiuddin, 2020. "Factors Influencing the Settlement Intentions of Chinese Migrants in Cities: An Analysis of Air Quality and Higher Income Opportunity as Predictors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-18, October.
    4. Ting Li & Wenting Fan & Jian Song, 2020. "The Household Structure Transition in China: 1982–2015," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1369-1391, August.
    5. Qinyi Jiang & Yuanyuan Wang & Xiaomei Ye & Xinger Li & Weimin Pan & Yuqu Wang, 2024. "Human Capital, Life Satisfaction, and the Floating Population’s Urban Settlement Intention in Cities—A Case Study of Six Cities in the Pearl River Delta," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-23, June.
    6. Tan, Jing & Xu, Hao & Yu, Jingwen, 2022. "The effect of homeownership on migrant household savings: Evidence from the removal of home purchase restrictions in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    7. C. Cindy Fan & Chen Chen, 2020. "Left Behind? Migration Stories of Two Women in Rural China," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 47-57.
    8. Ying Zhao & Martin Dijst & Yanwei Chai, 2016. "Between haven and heaven in cities: A comparison between Beijing (China) and Utrecht (the Netherlands)," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(12), pages 2469-2487, September.
    9. Jingyue Zhang & Yipeng Tian, 2019. "Housework Division and Second-Child Fertility Anxiety among Couples in China: The Urban and Rural Differences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-14, October.
    10. Sylvie Démurger & Hui Xu, 2015. "Left-behind children and return migration in China," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-21, December.
    11. Feinian Chen & Hui Liu & Kriti Vikram & Yu Guo, 2015. "For Better or Worse: The Health Implications of Marriage Separation Due to Migration in Rural China," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(4), pages 1321-1343, August.
    12. Sylvie Démurger & Hui Xu, 2011. "Left-Behind Children and Return Decisions of Rural Migrants in China," Post-Print halshs-00625636, HAL.
    13. Jasmine Gideon, 2016. "Migration and Health: Examining the Linkages through a Gender Lens," Working Papers id:8247, eSocialSciences.
    14. Wang, Chunchao & Zhang, Chenglei & Ni, Jinlan & Zhang, Haifeng & Zhang, Junsen, 2019. "Family migration in China: Do migrant children affect parental settlement intention?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 416-428.
    15. Zhen Wang & Mingzhi Hu & Yu Zhang & Zhuo Chen, 2022. "Housing Security and Settlement Intentions of Migrants in Urban China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-16, August.
    16. Zhe Song & Chen Hao, 2022. "Housing price and criminal crime in China: direct and indirect influence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(40), pages 4647-4663, August.
    17. Shenjing He & Junxi Qian, 2017. "From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: Urban China studies," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(4), pages 827-846, March.
    18. Ye Liu & Zhigang Li & Yuqi Liu & Hongsheng Chen, 2015. "Growth of rural migrant enclaves in Guangzhou, China: Agency, everyday practice and social mobility," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(16), pages 3086-3105, December.
    19. Christine Wen & Jeremy L. Wallace, 2019. "Toward Human-Centered Urbanization? Housing Ownership and Access to Social Insurance Among Migrant Households in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-14, June.
    20. Junjie Gao & Lyubing Feng & Xianguo Yao, 2021. "Information Transmission Mechanism of Inequality of Opportunity and Effort on Settlement Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, April.
    21. C. Cindy Fan & Tianjiao Li, 2020. "Split Households, Family Migration and Urban Settlement: Findings from China’s 2015 National Floating Population Survey," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 252-263.
    22. Xiang Luo & Zuo Zhang & Xun Xu & Chongming Li & Lu Zhang, 2020. "Birth without raising: Impact of labor migration on the medical benefits for migrant children in China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 809-832, June.
    23. Yanan Li & Chan Xiong & Zhe Zhu & Qiaowen Lin, 2021. "Family Migration and Social Integration of Migrants: Evidence from Wuhan Metropolitan Area, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-21, December.
    24. Chen Chen & C Cindy Fan, 2018. "Gender and generational differences in first outward- and first inward-moves: An event-history analysis of rural migrants in China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(8), pages 1646-1669, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Choithani, Chetan & van Duijne, Robbin Jan & Nijman, Jan, 2021. "Changing livelihoods at India’s rural–urban transition," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    2. Eddie Chi Man Hui & Ka Hung Yu & Yinchuan Ye, 2014. "Housing Preferences of Temporary Migrants in Urban China in the wake of Gradual Hukou Reform: A Case Study of Shenzhen," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1384-1398, July.
    3. Isabell Duda & Anja Fasse & Ulrike Grote, 2018. "Drivers of rural-urban migration and impact on food security in rural Tanzania," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(4), pages 785-798, August.
    4. Bravo-Ureta, B. & Ely, R.D. & Pelto, P.J. & Meneses, L. & Allen, L.H. & Pelto, G.H. & Chavez, A., 1989. "Determinants of Rural-to-Urban Labour Movements in Mexico: Household Perspective," 1989 Occasional Paper Series No. 5 197707, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. Rojas Valdes, Ruben I. & Lin Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia & Taylor, J. Edward, 2017. "The Dynamic Migration Game: A Structural Econometric Model and Application to Rural Mexico," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 259184, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Sabates, Ricardo, 2000. "Job Search and Migration in Peru," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 30(2), pages 1-25.
    7. Xiaoxian Guo & Qian Zhang & Yaxin Cheng & Jing’en Song, 2022. "Social Integration and Residence Intention of Foreigners in Western China: Evidence from Xi’an," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-16, August.
    8. Nobuhiko Fuwa, 2010. "Should We Track Migrant Households When Collecting Household Panel Data? Household Relocation, Economic Mobility, and Attrition Biases in the Rural Philippines," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(1), pages 56-82.
    9. Xiushi Yang, 2000. "The Fertility Impact of Temporary Migration in China: A Detachment Hypothesis," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 163-183, June.
    10. Guangzhong Cao & Ming Li & Yan Ma & Ran Tao, 2015. "Self-employment and intention of permanent urban settlement: Evidence from a survey of migrants in China’s four major urbanising areas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(4), pages 639-664, March.
    11. Rosenzweig, Mark R., 1987. "Labor Markets in Low Income Countries: Distortions, Mobility and Migration," Bulletins 7506, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    12. Filipe Lage de Sousa, 2014. "Does crime affect migration flows?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93, pages 99-111, November.
    13. Manh Hung Do & Trung Thanh Nguyen & Thanh-Tung Nguyen & Ulrike Grote, 2020. "Shocks and rural development policies: Any implications for migrants to return?," TVSEP Working Papers wp-018, Leibniz Universitaet Hannover, Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, Project TVSEP.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:9:p:2164-2185. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.