Abstract: Based on the 2005 survey data from five provinces in the eastern and middle China， this paper analyses the impact of peasants’ migrating experiences for urban jobs on the consuming concepts of rural families. The results showed the compelling power of such migrating experiences in modernizing the peasants’ consuming concepts but also varying effect sizes due to different migrating experiences. Furthermore， urban migration as a single variable had only a limited influence on such changes. In other words， a full turn depends upon many other factors.

Key words: migration, rural families, consuming concepts, modernization