Schizophrenia is one of several illnesses that are frequently associated with serious and chronic social dysfunction, so it is a suitable index condition for assessment of the strategies which families use to cope with disability. It is a universally prevalent disorder of unknown etiology, which usually starts during early adulthood. In societies such as China, where there are few social support services for the mentally ill and where mental illness is highly stigmatized, families are the primary care-givers for schizophrenic patients; they adopt a wide variety of structural and functional strategies with greater or lesser success. This chapter discusses the effect that schizophrenia has on family strategies in China and looks at the influence recent socioeconomic changes have had on these strategies.