Dynamics of family households and elderly living arrangements in China, 1990–2010

• Published in: China population and development studies Vol. 2; no. 2; pp. 129 - 157
• Main Authors: Zeng, Yi, Wang, Zhenglian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Springer Singapore 01-06-2018
• Subjects: Demography; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Original Article; Population Economics; Social Sciences; Social/Human Development Studies; Shrinking household size; Elderly living arrangements; China; Dynamics of family households; Increasing number of households
• ISSN: 2096-448X; 2523-8965
• DOI: 10.1007/s42379-018-0010-3

This article presents analyses on dynamics of family households and elderly living arrangements in China mainly based on the micro data of 2010, 2000 and 1990 censuses. We demonstrate and discuss the trends and rural–urban differentials of largely declined household size, quickly increasing one-person and one-couple-only households, substantially increased proportions of elderly living alone or with spouse only. It is strikingly interesting that proportion of three-generation family households increased by 18.9% in rural area but decreased by 23.7% in urban areas in 2010 compared to 1990, due to rural–urban differences in demographic effects of large fertility decline and socioeconomic/attitude changes. We also present and discuss two interesting demographic phenomenon which were relatively overlooked in the literature. First, increase in number of households is much larger than population growth, due to shrinking of the household size and decomposition of larger families into smaller ones, and very much slowed-down population growth. Second, increases in numbers of elderly (especially oldest-old) who live alone or with spouse only are dramatically larger than the increase in the corresponding proportions, due to the effects of rapid population aging, while later and larger birth cohorts become old. Such trends have important implications for the analyses on the current and future market demands of the products and services, of which households are the consumption units. We recommend that the studies on home-based energy use and sustainable development should be based on analyses of family household dynamics rather than population growth.