Household changes in contemporary China: an analysis based on the four recent censuses

Abstract

This paper analyzed China's household changes based on data from China's past four censuses of 1982, 1990, 2000, and 2010. The data showed that there was a rapid increase in the number of family households, a continued shrinking in household size, and a trend of simplification in household structure. The proportions of the one-couple household and the two-generation standard nuclear household presented the largest rise and the largest fall, respectively. Although the nuclear household still occupied the largest proportion, the single-person household was becoming more numerous, and the extended-family household still maintained a relatively large proportion. Low fertility, population mobility, aging, and the improvement of housing conditions were among the most significant factors that brought about changes to the family and the household in China. In addition, with the population aging, families with elderly members and empty-nest families progressively increased. While the proportion of the elderly-only family households increased, the share of coresidence of old people living with children declined. In China, the elderly are adopting two major forms of living arrangements: living alone or in multigeneration families. Future family policy should pay more attention to this phenomenon.

Determining the primary caregiver for disabled older adults in Mainland China: spouse priority and living arrangements

“…Thirty years after the introduction of the one‐child policy, intergenerational support from children has declined in Chinese families (Hesketh and Xing, ). Over the past decades China has embraced a massive growth in internal migration, and the geographical proximity between adult child and parents has increased (Hu and Peng, ), but non co‐residence between aging parents and adult children will still be the predominant model for intergenerational living arrangements in the future (Hu and Peng, ). It is likely that spouses will continue to play a central role in providing care for disabled older adults, with adult children assuming the primary caregiver role when parents become more disabled.…”

Loneliness as a risk factor for frailty transition among older Chinese people

“…According to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, 17.3% of the total population were aged 60 years and older in 2017. However, due to the implementation of the one-child policy in the earlier decades and recent increasing population mobility, the family size in China has been declining substantially, leading to over 50% of the urban and 60% of rural elderly living in empty-nest households, and the proportion of older people living alone in China was 12.5% in 2010, an increase by 30% in the prior two decades [2,3]. These ndings all have important implications for the health and social care of the elderly.…”

Changes in family structure in China: the impact of residence patterns and demographic factors

“…In the year 2000, China's family structures could be divided into several categories, including relatively stable families (such as three-generation households), emerging families (such as single-person households, grandparent headed household) and diminishing families (such as impaired nuclear families) (Wang 2006). In 2010, the cumulative proportion of one-generation and two-generation households exceeded 80%, with the proportion of one-generation households going up 11% from 2000 and that of twogeneration households going down 10% from 2000 (Hu and Peng 2014). According to Western theories of family modernization, family transition is influenced by both socio-economic factors and demographic factors.…”