In China, continuous rural–urban migration on a massive scale disrupts the traditional rural patriarchal society and makes the temporary non-patrilocal way of residence possible. This new residential pattern has brought profound changes to the lives of migrants. Based on participant observation and interviewing, this article intends to explore the exercise of agency and the representation of subjectivity of female migrant workers in intimate relations after migration. By emphasizing the intergenerational relationship and partner relationships of both unmarried and married women, I demonstrate a complicated picture regarding the changing status of rural migrant women and show how these women both conform and challenge the social norm of filial obligations, through which their agency is exerted and subjectivity is crafted.

Although mobility in and out of intimate relationships has become more common in later life, it has been a neglected issue in social gerontology. In this article, we ask what characterises the formation of new intimate relationships in later life, and whether there are any specific conditions that separate these from relationships in earlier stages of the lifecourse. On the basis of qualitative interviews with 28 persons aged 63–91 who have established a new intimate heterosexual relationship after the age of 60 or who are dating singles, we argue that time constitutes such a central structuring condition. We discuss and theorise two aspects of time – post-(re)productive free time and remaining time – which have an important formative power on new late-in-life relationships. We argue that together these aspects form a central existential structure of ageing in many Western societies – the paradoxical condition of having lots of available free time but little time left in life – which, besides influencing new late-in-life relationships, might also be relevant to other aspects of and choices in later life.