Changing roles of marriage and family status for labor migration? The case of rural China

Against the changing patterns of internal migration in China, this study uses the 2019 round of the China Income Household Survey and event history techniques to examine the gender and birth cohort patterns of how marriage and childbearing shape first labor migration among rural-origin individuals born in 1951-2000 in China. Our descriptive results find that apart from men's consistently higher risks of first labor migration, Chinese individuals’ life course trajectories related to marriage, childbearing, and migration have changed remarkably over birth cohorts. Younger birth cohorts are more likely than older ones to migrate for work for the first time before marriage and having children, with this change more pronounced for men than women. Discrete-time logistic models show that both marriage and having children lower men's and women's risks of first labor migration. While childbearing responsibilities hinder women's first labor migration more than men's, there are no gender differences in the role of marriage in migration outcomes. The gender differences in the association between childbearing and first labor migration may be attributed to the gendered division of labor in the family. The fact that childbearing as a constraint for first labor migration grows stronger over birth cohorts can be attributed to the changing timing of first labor migration relative to first marriage and childbearing in China.