Abstract: This paper proposes a framework to analyze urban living capabilities and argues that， with the reduced costs of labor transfer， the urban living capabilities of the workers in the labor force have been steadily improved. However， the dual pressure of the bottlenecked sustainable wages and high costs for a city life have brought down the workers’ urban living capabilities to a very low level， resulting in a dual mode of labor transfer， a form unique to China but apparently not ideal for the Chinese labor force shifts. The paper thereby suggests a new way of intergenerational mobility as a plausible solution， a form only second to the best. The longterm benefits of the current generations’ dual transfer are in its possibility to provide their children with multiple initiative resources （nonhuman wealth， human and social capitals） for their intergenerational mobility. In addition， the current generations must obtain policy support for successful intergenerational mobility to occur. The urgent task at present is to offer policies to help the children of the peasant workers in cities establish citizenship.

Key words: urban living capabilities, intergenerational mobility, social capital, citizenship