New peasant family forms in rural china

This article explores the responses of peasant households in China to the quite new and radical demands made on their resources as a result of the various recent rural economic reforms. Each of the reforms has far‐reaching implications for the form and content of rural social institutions. This article attempts, as far as is presently possible, to identify current changes in size, structure and activity of domestic and kin groups, and to analyse the new socio‐economic relations within and between households. It argues that in order to mobilise and maximise their labour and other resources to arrange for the production, consumption and welfare of household members, close kin and neighbouring peasant households have combined to give rise to a new family form, the aggregate family. This study analyses the factors leading to its formation, identifies the characteristics of this new family form and examines its relations both within and beyond the village.