Despite a long history of urbanisation in Sweden, recent migration research notes a renewed interest in counterurbanisation as well as a higher propensity for families to become counterurban movers. While many of the motives described in counterurbanisation research tend to align with push/pull arguments, the migration decision process is likely to be more complex as it relies on individuals' spatial perceptions and evaluations combined with individual opportunities and constraints for mobility. In migration, everyday practices become disrupted, as the spatial anchoring of certain amenities means that they cannot easily be brought to the new location. This paper focuses on the migration experiences of young counterurbanising families, analysing qualitatively how different amenities are valued and how the trade-off is experienced and negotiated between members of the family unit. Presenting everyday family life from the perspective of assemblages, we seek to grasp at the complexity of the material, social and emotive context of individual and family lifeworlds. Assemblage thinking allows for considering how different elements in everyday life are valued; which are indispensable and which are possible to replace. The logic of assemblages thus opens up for thinking about how everyday life can be disassembled and reassembled through migration, and how family members negotiate this (de/re)construction of everyday life.
{"title":"Beyond the City Life: Assembling Everyday Family Life After Counterurbanisation","authors":"Ulrika Åkerlund, Fredrik Hoppstadius","doi":"10.1002/psp.70180","DOIUrl":"10.1002/psp.70180","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite a long history of urbanisation in Sweden, recent migration research notes a renewed interest in counterurbanisation as well as a higher propensity for families to become counterurban movers. While many of the motives described in counterurbanisation research tend to align with push/pull arguments, the migration decision process is likely to be more complex as it relies on individuals' spatial perceptions and evaluations combined with individual opportunities and constraints for mobility. In migration, everyday practices become disrupted, as the spatial anchoring of certain amenities means that they cannot easily be brought to the new location. This paper focuses on the migration experiences of young counterurbanising families, analysing qualitatively how different amenities are valued and how the trade-off is experienced and negotiated between members of the family unit. Presenting everyday family life from the perspective of assemblages, we seek to grasp at the complexity of the material, social and emotive context of individual and family lifeworlds. Assemblage thinking allows for considering how different elements in everyday life are valued; which are indispensable and which are possible to replace. The logic of assemblages thus opens up for thinking about how everyday life can be disassembled and reassembled through migration, and how family members negotiate this (de/re)construction of everyday life.</p>","PeriodicalId":48067,"journal":{"name":"Population Space and Place","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/psp.70180","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study investigates how rural-to-urban migrants in China select dual frames of reference and how these choices shape their subjective well-being. It challenges conventional approaches that treat reference group comparisons as single and unordered, with a focus on either host or home comparisons. Drawing on original 2024 survey data from 15 cities, the study explores how integration into the host society and translocal ties to origin communities influence dual frames of reference. The findings show that economically integrated migrants tend to prioritize host-based comparisons, but many retain a secondary frame that is tied to rural/home communities or migrant peers. Meanwhile, strong translocal ties reinforce rural/home comparisons, suggesting that some migrants do not fully shift to host-based perspectives. Reference group frames influence subjective well-being differently under benchmark-exceedance (i.e., migrants economically outperform host residents) and benchmark-deficit (i.e., migrants economically underperform host residents) contexts. Our sample reflects the former. In this context, frames that prioritize urban residents yield the highest subjective well-being, while home residents yield the lowest, consistent with aspiration realization rather than relative deprivation. These findings contribute to reference group theory in migration research by showing how migrants navigate multiple comparisons and balance aspirations, competition, and identity throughout the integration process.
{"title":"Determinants and Consequences of Dual Frames of Reference Among Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China","authors":"Zhenxiang Chen, Wanyang Hu","doi":"10.1002/psp.70185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.70185","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study investigates how rural-to-urban migrants in China select dual frames of reference and how these choices shape their subjective well-being. It challenges conventional approaches that treat reference group comparisons as single and unordered, with a focus on either host or home comparisons. Drawing on original 2024 survey data from 15 cities, the study explores how integration into the host society and translocal ties to origin communities influence dual frames of reference. The findings show that economically integrated migrants tend to prioritize host-based comparisons, but many retain a secondary frame that is tied to rural/home communities or migrant peers. Meanwhile, strong translocal ties reinforce rural/home comparisons, suggesting that some migrants do not fully shift to host-based perspectives. Reference group frames influence subjective well-being differently under benchmark-exceedance (i.e., migrants economically outperform host residents) and benchmark-deficit (i.e., migrants economically underperform host residents) contexts. Our sample reflects the former. In this context, frames that prioritize urban residents yield the highest subjective well-being, while home residents yield the lowest, consistent with aspiration realization rather than relative deprivation. These findings contribute to reference group theory in migration research by showing how migrants navigate multiple comparisons and balance aspirations, competition, and identity throughout the integration process.</p>","PeriodicalId":48067,"journal":{"name":"Population Space and Place","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/psp.70185","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146002366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}