Keywords
Abstract
This research explores the development of “migratory bird” families and their adaptive patterns in response to infrastructural limitations within the context of China’s county-level urbanisation. Through 14 months of ethnographic research conducted in three regions, we delineate four distinct patterns of mobility: seasonal agricultural circulators, education-driven circulators, healthcare-anchored circulators, and split-generation households. These intergenerational family arrangements adeptly modulate the socio-structural gap between urban and rural welfare systems concomitantly with caregiving responsibilities across generations. Our framework illustrates the interplay among urban-rural institutional divides, familial assets, and culturally defined expectations of filial duty that give rise to these structures. The data elucidate intricate bidirectional resource exchanges and gendered caregiving dynamics where women disproportionately bear caregiving burdens across spaces. “Migratory bird” families face acute disadvantage in accessing housing, healthcare, subsidised services, and living within rigidly predefined systemic thresholds. Their adaptive responses illuminate systemic shortcomings of social protection frameworks and simultaneously underscore families’ resourcefulness in care configuration. This criticism redefines urbanisation as unidirectional and proposes policy changes such as cross-system integration, flexible housing, and women-centric structural aid responsive to mobile multi-generational families within the context of Chinese urban development.