Dynamics of Households and Living Arrangements in the Eastern, Middle, and Western Regions of China

Abstract

In this chapter presented the dynamics of household and living arrangements in the Eastern, Middle, and Western regions of China. The results showed that, if the current age distribution of rural-to-urban migrants with a high concentration of young people remains unchanged, the Middle region will have the most serious problems of population and household aging, followed by the Eastern region; population and household aging will be twice as severe in rural areas compared to urban areas in Middle and Eastern regions. Our multi-regional projections and analysis clearly showed that population and household aging problems under the current fertility policies unchanged would be much more serious than that under the two-child policy. Our study suggests that the inclusion of elderly parents in regional and rural to urban family migration, which implies co- or proximate-residence between old parents and adult children, would help to avoid the over-aging problems in rural areas and the Middle region; this strategy may result in a win-win outcome for both old and young generations.