A Demographic Analysis of Family Households in China, 1982-1995*

INTRODUCTON Since 1982, when the third modern Chinese census was conducted1, socioeconomic development level and people's living standards in China have increased rapidly. Under the tremendously changed social and economic environment, what is the general pattern of the Chinese family household structure? What are the characteristics of living arrangements of the elderly population, which is increasing dramatically and giving China an unprecedented serious challenge (see, e.g. Poston and Duan 2000; Zeng 2001)? What are the rural-urban differentials? As compared with the 1980's, what are the dynamic changes in the family household structure in the 1990s? To shed light on answering such questions, which are interesting to the academic community and policy makers, this paper presents a demographic analysis of status and dynamic changes of family households in the contemporary China from 1982 to 1995. The concept of family household (Jia Tin Hu) used in this paper refers to a unit that consists of co-residing persons related through marriage, blood or adoption, and also includes co-residing non-relatives. Nuclear family households include the one couple only household and the two generation household consisting of parents and unmarried children, which is further classified as the husband-wife, single-mother or single-father nuclear family household. Extended family households include the stem extended unit, combined extended units, two-- generation unit of parents) and married children without grandchildren, as well as the unit consisting of grandparents) and grandchildren with the middle generation missing. The stem extended family household unit consists of three or more co-residing generations with no married siblings living together. The combined extended family household refers to those units in which at least two married siblings and their spouses live together. Analysis presented in this paper is based on data derived mainly from the 1995 minicensus, the 1990 census, and the 1982 census. Using the census 1%Io micro sample data file, we computed remarkably detailed distributions of the family household types of 1990. Detailed information about the living arrangements of the elderly in 1990 and 1982 were derived from the micro sample data files of the corresponding censuses. Because micro sample data files of the 1995 mini-census have never been released, less detailed but informative distributions of family households in 1995 are presented, based on the cross-tabulations published by the State Statistical Bureau (SSB 1997). It is widely recognized that the quality of Chinese demographic data is generally good. For example, Coale (1984) combined and analyzed the 1982 one-per-thousand fertility survey data and the 1953, 1964, and 1982 census data on numbers of persons by sex and single year of age up to age 100. He concluded that the data passed a series of stringent tests of accuracy and consistency, Other scholars who have analyzed Chinese censuses and survey data have reached similar conclusions (see, e.g., Kannisto, 1986; Yu, 1986; Kincannon and Banister, 1986).Underreporting of births has, however, become more serious in the 1990s (see, for example, Zeng, 1996), which has contributed to the underestimation of family household sizes. We must keep this issue in mind, although it does not significantly affect our analysis on family household types. The next section presents the general patterns of family household sizes and types as well as the living arrangements of the elderly in the 1990s. The third section discusses the rural-urban differentials. The dynamic changes between 1982, 1990, and 1995 are given in the fourth section. While we present and analyse the demographic figures, socioeconomic and cultural background as well as some explanations on the status and dynamic changes in Chinese family household pattems will also be discussed. Concluding remarks dealing mainly with future perspectives on Chinese family households will be presented in the last section. …