The Impact of Economic Reforms on Family Division in China

Feinian Chen, Texas A&M University

Sweeping economic reforms have taken place in China since the late 1970s. The imprint of industrialization on family structures has been well noted. It is argued that economic development erodes the tradition of extended families and leads to convergence of all family forms to nuclear families. Indeed, the traditional extended family system is undergoing tremendous changes in China. Coresidence of parents and adult children has reportedly become less favored by both generations. While there is some evidence supporting this trend of “modernization” at the macro level, much less known is about when and how individual extended families split into nuclear families, a process known as family or household division. In this paper, using a longitudinal dataset, China Health and Nutrition Survey, I explore specific ways that the economic reform influences the division of existing extended households, operating through changes in economic opportunities at the individual, household and community level.