Abstract: The data for this study come from "Social Integration, Marriage and Family Survey in Guangzhou" in 2016. The study investigates the influence of migration pattern on marriage stability among migrant workers from the perspective of gender and cohort. The findings reveal significant cohort and gender differences in marriage stability among migrant workers with younger generation exhibiting higher instability than older generation, females than their male counterparts, and female young generation scoring the highest in marriage break up. Migration pattern has significant effects on marital instability but the impact differs in gender and cohort. Marriages of the first-generation migrants appear to be little affected by inter-provincial migration.Nevertheless, migration without spouse seems to have some impact on the marriage stability of first-generation female migrants butits most significant influence is on young female migrants. Both mediation and moderation analysis show that between migration with or without spouse, marital satisfaction acts as a mediation variable among female young generation but as a moderation variable among all male migrants. In terms of the relationship between inter-provincial migration and marriage stability, marital satisfaction has moderating effect among all female migrant workers but not male migrants. This study shows that migration pattern exerts significant but different influences on marriage stability among migrants of different gender and cohort.

Key words: marriage stability, migrant worker, population migration, gender, cohort