TY - JOUR
T1 - Marital age homogamy in China
T2 - A reversal of trend in the reform era?
AU - Mu, Zheng
AU - Xie, Yu
N1 - Funding Information:
An early version of this paper was presented at the 2009 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility spring meeting in Beijing, China and the 2010 Population Association of America annual meeting in Dallas, Texas. We are grateful to conference participants, five anonymous reviewers, as well as Tak Wing Chan, Albert Esteve, Alexandra Killewald, Qing Lai, James Raymo, Christine Schwartz, Pam Smock, Arland Thornton and Berna Torr for their comments and advice. We also thank N.E. Barr, Cindy Glovinsky, Xiwei Wu and Jia Yu for their statistical and editorial help. Financial support for this research was provided by the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, which receive core support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD041028).
PY - 2014/3
Y1 - 2014/3
N2 - This paper reports on a study of trends in marital age homogamy in China from 1960 to 2005 that uses data from the China 2005 1% Population Inter-census Survey. Instead of a consistent increase in age homogamy, results show an inverted U-shaped trend. One plausible explanation is that intensified economic pressure, rising consumerism, and a shrinking gender gap in education during the post-1990s reform era have acted to increase women's desire to marry men who are more economically established, and thus usually older, than less financially secure men. We argue that age hypergamy maintains status hypergamy, a deeply rooted norm for couples in China. An auxiliary analysis based on the human capital model for earnings supports this interpretation. A continued trend in age hypergamy implies a future "marriage squeeze" for men of low socioeconomic status.
AB - This paper reports on a study of trends in marital age homogamy in China from 1960 to 2005 that uses data from the China 2005 1% Population Inter-census Survey. Instead of a consistent increase in age homogamy, results show an inverted U-shaped trend. One plausible explanation is that intensified economic pressure, rising consumerism, and a shrinking gender gap in education during the post-1990s reform era have acted to increase women's desire to marry men who are more economically established, and thus usually older, than less financially secure men. We argue that age hypergamy maintains status hypergamy, a deeply rooted norm for couples in China. An auxiliary analysis based on the human capital model for earnings supports this interpretation. A continued trend in age hypergamy implies a future "marriage squeeze" for men of low socioeconomic status.
KW - Economic pressure
KW - Economic reform
KW - Gender gap in education
KW - Marital age homogamy
KW - Status hypergamy
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.11.005
DO - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.11.005
M3 - Article
C2 - 24468440
AN - SCOPUS:84891126185
SN - 0049-089X
VL - 44
SP - 141
EP - 157
JO - Social Science Research
JF - Social Science Research
ER -