Abstract Drawing on data from the World Values Survey (1990–2018) and grounded in modernization and social transformation theories, this study examines the evolution of Chinese people’s attitudes toward work and life over the past three decades. The results reveal a general shift from “production-centered” to “life-centered” orientations. This specifically indicates that during the 1990s, work-centered values intensified, but since the early 2000s, they gradually weakened. As a key dimension of individual life, family orientation declined temporarily between 1990 and the early 2000s but later re-emerged as a factor central to everyday life. Leisure orientation, meanwhile, strengthened alongside socioeconomic development. In addition, class differences in these orientations have changed over time, and individual attitudes are found to relate more closely to their life-cycle stage than to their birth cohort.

This study aims to investigate and compare the determinants of gender preference for children in rural and urban China under the values of children to parents (VOC) approach by focusing on the effects of attitudes to elder care and gender roles, and the attainment of insurance programs. Using pooled cross-sectional data from 2013 and 2015 of the Chinese General Social Surveys, we found that rural individuals expecting children responsible for old-age support exhibit daughter preference, followed by balance preference, whereas their urban counterparts show similar son preference and daughter preference. In addition, balance preference is associated with traditional gender role attitudes among rural individuals but correlated with more equal gender attitudes among urbanites. Furthermore, having more economic security decreases rural individuals' preferences for having more daughters. The findings suggest that the prevalent balance preference and the rising preference for daughters have quite different implications on the gender relationship between rural and urban China, and traditionalism still drives gender preference in rural China. Policy implications are also discussed.

This research examines recent trends in child socialization values in China. Drawing on repeated cross-sectional datasets from World Values Survey in 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007 and 2012, we assess birth cohort changes and time trends in three dimensions of child socialization values: self-actualization, survival security, and other-orientedness. Results from APC models show that Chinese adults emphasize self-actualization the most and other-orientedness the least, with survival security in between. Early life conditions and formative experiences shape cohort differences. Younger cohorts in general value self-actualization and survival security more than other cohorts. Cohort variations in other-orientedness reveal a flat trend. Between 1990 and 2012 there are period-specific variations in these values, though a simple upward or downward shift in the three dimensions is not found. Socioeconomic development and demographic shifts partially explain the period variations in survival security value dimension. Together, these results unravel the complex trends of socialization values for children as Chinese families adapt to a range of society-wide changes and generational successions, shedding new light on the effects of period, cohort, and social changes on childrearing norms.

In this study, we investigate the correlation between migrant-related factors and migrants’ childrearing values concerning community-oriented versus individual-based dimensions, with a particular interest in the effects of rural household registration ( hukou) status and settlement intention. Using data from the 2009 Longitudinal Survey on Rural–Urban Migration in China, we find that rural migrants stress individual-based qualities the most, such as independence, diligence, and responsibility, while they also emphasize certain community-oriented qualities, such as tolerance/respect, and obedience. Local or non-local rural hukou status at the city level is not an important factor in people’s migrant lives when it comes to shaping childrearing values. Instead, settlement intention is found to be more important than hukou status in affecting rural migrants’ childrearing values, particularly in non-local rural migrants, in that rural migrants with settlement intention tend to favor community-oriented values as opposed to individual-based values for their children.

This study examines the income determinants of rural migrants versus urban residents in the urban labor market of China during the 2008 Labor Contract Law era. We focus on the effects of employment contracts, enterprise ownership and social networks on income using data from the 2009 Rural-Urban Migration in China survey and applying ordinary least squares regression and propensity score matching analyses. The results showed that urban residents were more advantaged with guaranteed respectable job earnings, stable employment contracts and involvement in state-owned enterprises and public organizations compared to rural migrants. Rural migrants earned much less than their urban counterparts across ownership sectors. Although rural migrants benefited from urban networks, social exclusion impeded their accumulation of urban ties. Despite the Chinese Government's call in recent years to fully support the citizenization of rural migrants by revising the Labor Contract Law and reforming the household registration (hukou) system, the study showed that the integration of rural migrant workers in urban China has a long way to go.

This study examines the effects of stability in employment and migration on rural migrants’ access to social insurance. Special attention is given to the interaction between the employment contract and the employment sector and between the employment contract and the migrants’ local–nonlocal rural hukou status. Using data from the 2009 Rural-Urban Migration survey in China, the analysis reveals that having a stable contract and high job stability are positively correlated with social insurance coverage among rural migrants, whereas a stable migration experience and the intention to settle in the host city do not increase the likelihood of having social insurance coverage. Having a stable contract plays an important role in closing and even reversing the coverage gap between local and non-local rural migrants by significantly boosting the latter’s chances of obtaining social insurance. However, the beneficial effects derived from having a stable contract in improving the likelihood of obtaining social insurance have been significant in the state sector but quite limited in the non-state sector. Astonishingly, this has unintendedly increased the coverage disparity between the two employment sectors, except for the housing provident fund. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.