根據農村70歲以上老年人的口述史資料,可分析他們在20世紀50年代中期土地集體化之前、50—70年代土地集體化時期及家庭聯產承包責任制時期的家庭生產與生活情況,以及這三個時期農村家庭結構的變化。研究發現,中國傳統大家庭向小家庭的轉型并不是由西方傳統意義的工業化促成的,作為1949年后國家早期工業化策略的農村土地集體化徹底改變了傳統家庭生產與生活的組織方式,改變了父權制度下的代際關系與結構,進而啟動了家庭結構轉型的歷史進程。這一解釋有別于經典的家庭變遷的"現代化理論"。

We use oral history materials from elderly rural people aged over seventy to analyze rural family production and living conditions prior to collectivization in the mid-1950s;during collectivization from the 1950 s to the 1970s;and under the household contract responsibility system of the late 1970 s.We find that the transition from the traditional family to the nuclear family was not the result of industrialization in the traditional Western sense.As an early industrialization strategy of the state after1949,rural collectivization fundamentally changed the organizing pattern of traditional family production and living conditions and of inter-generational relations and structure under the patriarchal system,and in addition started the historical course of structural transition in the family.This explanation differs from the classical "theory of modernization" of family change.