Mobility、Family Values and Marital Stability in Rural China

Marital stability is an increasingly important question in the transformation of the surplus rural labor force in China. This paper investigates the relationships between mobility, family values and marital satisfaction of rural inhabitants.The objective of the analysis is to examine the effect of family values on the influence of out-migration with couple’s living seperation on marital satisfaction with spouse. Data were obtained from a sample of 678 married people in Chaohu of Anhui province of central China in 2010. The results show that there is a significant negative correlation between seperation and satisfaction with spouse. However the correlation is weakened by family-dominated culture, which is still strong in rural China. Implications of these results for marital stability and changes of rural families are discussed.