| Summary/Abstract |
Urbanization in China is a progressive process that is rapid in speed, massive in scale, multiple in pathways, and unique in the institutional scheme. The country’s urban population includes heterogeneous groups of temporary migrants, merit-based converters, policy-based converters, and urban natives, depending upon their respective hukou status and hukou conversion. In this study, we used pooled cross-sectional data from four waves of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS 2010, 2012, 20132015) to examine variations in household composition across different groups of urban residents. Our sample included married respondents aged 18–59 years (N = 26,930), with rural non-migratory residents serving as the reference group. Logistic regression results revealed that (1) policy-based converters presented no notable changes in patrilocality and matrilocality; (2) temporary migrants and merit-based migrants had lower odds of patrilocality but showed no differences in the likelihood of matrilocality; and (3) urban natives had a lower likelihood of patrilocality and a slightly higher probability of matrilocality. These findings indicate that urban groups of varying hukou-status experienced asymmetric deviations from traditional extended households. These shifts reflect a landscape of gradient individualization of the urban family composition in transitional China.
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