Labor Migration in China: How Families Affect Migrant Workers

China’s huge economic growth over the past four decades has been observed by the world and oftentimes acknowledged as an economic miracle. One of the main factors of this extraordinary growth is the large labor population and comparatively cheap labor cost. With the introduction of the Economic Reform and Opening-Up in the late 1970s, a large proportion of the Chinese citizens started to seek better work opportunities outside their permanent residencies, which was not restricted prior to the reform. These people, commonly quoted as the migrant workers and consist more than 20% of the Chinese labor force, is being studied as a good indicator which reflects both the internal migration and the economic growth of China. This paper attempts to understand if family characteristics have any impact on individuals’ decisionmaking of becoming a migrant worker. The study finds that for each one extra person in the family, an individual’s likelihood of becoming a migrant worker will increase by 1.36%; whereas for each one extra child an individual has, the likelihood will decrease by 2.8%