Geographical Mobility, Income, Life Satisfaction and Family Size Preferences: An Empirical Study on Rural Households in Shaanxi and Henan Provinces in China

Jiangsheng Chen and Hong Yang ()
Additional contact information
Jiangsheng Chen: Northwest A&F University
Hong Yang: Northwest A&F University

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2016, vol. 129, issue 1, No 16, 277-290

Abstract: Abstract Employing data from the China rural–urban mobility survey conducted in 2010, this study investigates the influence of family demographic characteristics on the income, life satisfaction, and potential for rural–urban mobility at the rural household level of two provinces of China: Shaanxi and Henan. A larger labor force in a rural household was found to reduce a family’s ability or inclination to move to a city. The findings reveal that family size negatively affects the average income per family member and reduces the marginal income of the labor force and that minor children can improve the life satisfaction of family members. We conclude that a larger family size does not translate to more benefits for a rural household. Family size preference is found to be a reflection of parents’ concerns about elderly care and is deemed to be unfavorable for urbanization in P. R. China.

Keywords: Family size preference; Rural household; Population; Environment; China; Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-015-1102-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:129:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-015-1102-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-1102-7

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().