Based on the urban and rural multi-sited tracking ethnography of migrant workers’ source and destination

this article finds that the new generation of older single male migrant workers are gradually falling into the urbanization dilemma of being separated from the countryside and unable to integrate into the city and therefore sink between the urban and rural areas. The mechanism that causes this dilemma is the multi-institutional dis-embedding that unfolds with the development of life under the divided rural-urban structure and the squeeze of the marriage market. In the early period of their working life

the new generation of migrant workers have a tendency to stay away from the rural society; with the emergence and prolongation of difficulties in getting married and starting a family

older single male workers gradually break away from family and relatives; in the subsequent long-term single life

they gradually slip into the temporary labor market

forming a new dilemma group stuck between the urban and rural areas. This article also finds that the emergence of family fragility such as divorce of the new generation of migrant workers in recent years has caused part of them to dis-embed again and enter the urbanization dilemma similar to that of older single male workers. The article shows that the urbanization dilemma of the new generation of migrant workers has become an important social governance issue

and multi-institutional interventions

especially the stabilization of family structure

are needed to avoid the formation and growth of the new dilemma groups stuck between the urban and rural areas.