Migration Arrangements of Couples, Satisfaction with Spousal Contributions, and Happiness of Rural Chinese

Over the past two decades, migratory arrangements among married couples in China have become more diversified, owing to the greater participation of married rural women in migration. Using data from the 2012 and 2014 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), the present study systematically investigates the happiness of husbands and wives involved in these migration arrangements: being left behind, migrating alone, and migrating together with the spouse. We mainly address two research questions. First, what is the relationship between different migration arrangements made by couples and the happiness of husbands and wives? Second, is this association explained by their perception of their spouse's economic and housework contributions to the family? Our findings indicate that migrating together is positively associated with the happiness of wives and being left behind has a strong negative association with the happiness of husbands. We found that for women who migrate with a spouse, happiness can be explained by increased satisfaction with the husbands' economic contribution. In addition, for men, the negative relationship between being left behind and happiness can be explained away when the husband is satisfied with the wife's economic and housework contributions.