Comparative Study On Family Structures And Marital Relations Among Different Demographic Groups

This study aims to explore the characteristics and features of family structures andmarital relations among urban, rural and floating population, and the differences of thesethree demographic groups family structure and family relations were analyzed based onthe previous endeavor. In this study, the Marital Satisfaction Test (ENRICH), the MaritalAdjustment Test (MAT), and the Marital Health Test (MHT) are used as research tools. Atotal of1651couples in China were surveyed to study the status of family structures andmarital relations among the urban, rural and floating populations, to compare theirdifferences. The research is made by the following three ways. Firstly, focusing on familystructure types, household size and family generation numbers, this paper analyzes thestatus of family structures among rural, urban and floating populations. Secondly, personalbackground factors and couples differences were used to research the marital relations ofthese three groups. Thirdly, self-evaluation and marital interaction were applied to measurethe health status of marital relations. The main conclusions are as follows:(1) In the whole perspective, nuclear family has been the dominant family type whilelineal family with three generations also has certain proportion. The family structure andhousehold size are tending to be simple and small. There are similarities between urbanand rural family structures, but differences still exist. That is, compared to the familystructure in the urban areas, those in the rural area are more complicated, and thehousehold sizes in rural areas are bigger. Additionally, the floating population has thetendency to migrate with the all family while this migration mode has led to the dramaticincrease in the number of lineal family with a gap generation in rural area.(2) Personal background, including social status, annual income and so on, is animportant factor that influences the self-evaluated marital relation. This research finds thatthe higher social status and better financial situation result in the higher score in ENRICHand MAT.(3) Husband or wife s background factors, such as social status and annual incomehave impacts on marital raltion, however, such kind of influences are different on urban,rural and floating population. (4) The health status of couples interaction is affected more by couples differencescompared with personal background factors. The study shows that the more similar thecouples background is, the higher health status of couples interaction is. The distincttypes of couples differences have variant impacts on dimension of marital interactions.Couples s differences have distinct impacts on urban, rural and floating population smarital relation.