关键词: 初婚年龄, 生命历程, 事件史分析, 劳动力迁移

Abstract:  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. 

Key words: event history analysis, labor migration, age of first marriage, life course