Settlement in Nanjing among Chinese rural migrant families: The role of changing and persistent family norms

Abstract

After nearly four decades of rural–urban mobility in China, most rural-to-urban migrants are still in a disadvantaged position. Nevertheless, an increasing number of them have started to pursue permanent settlements in urban destinations. Despite many quantitative studies concerning their settlement outcomes, little is known about the strategies employed and processes undergone by families in realising their settlement plans. The permanent settlement of migrants usually requires the commitment of their extended intergenerational families. We investigate how changing and persistent family norms feature in decisions over settlement plans made by nuclear families of the younger generation of rural-to-urban migrant workers in a Chinese megacity. Building on face-to-face interviews in Nanjing, we found reflections of individualism among the younger generation, such as a greater desire for personal fulfilment, stronger voices of wives in couples and the decline in filial obligation. The older generation also revealed certain aspects of individualism. They expressed rising concerns for their well-being and chose to accept the loss of authority in the plans to support adult children to settle down. Under a child-centred logic, parental sacrifice has been persistent among younger and older generations. Thus, difficulties encountered during urban settlement have transferred from the younger generation to their parents through parental sacrifice embedded in Chinese Confucian ideology. The exclusive urban housing and education systems, combined with the lack of care systems for children and the elderly, mediate these family norms.