生命历程理论视角下劳动力迁移对初婚年龄的影响

摘要

本文利用2012年清华大学“城镇化与劳动力移民”项目的调查数据，通过事件史方法考察劳动力迁移对初婚年龄的影响。研究发现，劳动力迁移会对初婚年龄产生推迟效应，迁移事件发生的时机和过程都会左右这一影响的具体结果。研究显示，越早实现迁移，越有助于移民进入婚姻，频繁的流动则削弱了结婚的可能性，而父亲的迁移经历同样会对子女的初婚年龄产生影响。通过对不同世代群体的比较，本文进一步发现，迁移对初婚年龄的影响程度随世代推移呈现“倒U型”趋势，这一结果与不同世代下的迁移特点及其身处情境有关。研究结果表明，劳动力移民的生命历程基于迁移发生了转轨，他们放缓了自我再生产的周期，这对人口结构和社会结构的调整具有重大意义。%As China continues its process of marketization and urbanization, more and more people choose to be migrant laborers,who comprise one of the most important segments of China’s current migratory population.The act of migration disrupts the ordinary,stable life course and then creates a series of transition-related effects.During this process of migration,marriage is a key issue that not only determines individual life course development,but also relates to the macro level transformation of social structure and demographic structure.Hence,an analysis of the influence of labor migration on first age of marriage will deepen our understanding of the changes migrants undergo in their migration experiences,and provide explanations for the relationships between labor migration and social changes.Drawing upon the data from“2012 Tsinghua Migration Survey”,this paper uses event history analysis model to examine the effects of labor migration on marital timing based on life course theory.The study reveals a negative effect of migration experiences on the likelihood of early marriage.The timing,times and distance of migration also matter,while their effects differentiate between different cohorts.Generally, the impact of migration on first marriage shows a reversed U shape by different cohorts,which is caused by the features of different migration generations and their social circumstance.In sum,this article argues that individual agency plays an important role in how migration influences marriage,resulting in the diversity of migrants’life courses under a proximate context,and interconnected lives relate individual migrants to the macro family structure.The findings indicate that labor migrants slow down their paces of self-reproduction in the life cycle.As a result,migrants’individual life course will change significantly,as well as the social structure as a whole.