Registered households and micro-social structure in China: Residential patterns in three settlements in Beijing area

A large amount of research on Chinese households has been undertaken since 1980. However, problems existing in Chinese household registration and their impact on collecting household data have not been fully appreciated. Furthermore, most published studies have concentrated on the composition of households, while kinship relations beyond households have not been adequately investigated. This article starts with a description of China's household registration and its connection with the census and survey data collection. Then, problems of household registration and their influence on the study of Chinese households are investigated on the basis of field research. Finally, village kinship networks are examined in order to shed further light on micro-social structure in rural China.