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Xiaorong Gu

marriage behaviors of youths in one study presents a complete picture of the trends, patterns of their married life, and
importantly the social implications thereof. Second, with compelling empirical evidence, this study offers an assessment
of the marriage behaviors of youths over four decades in contemporary China. In particular, to the knowledge of the
author, this paper provides the first empirical analysis of the post-80 s youths’ passage to marriage based on national
representative data. Third, this study charters the unique trajectory of Chinese youths’ life course transition since reform,
which is characterized by a condensed transition within a limited time window and heightened status compatibility
between spouses. This is germane to further theoretical discussions of social stratification, life course, and youth identity
in a fast-changing society.
The overall assessment suggests that relative to their counterparts in western industrialized societies (Furstenberg,
2010; 2013) or early developed East Asian societies such as Japan (Raymo, 1998; 2003) and Singapore (Jones, 2005;
2010), Chinese youths of recent cohorts do not systematically delay nor fly away from marriage. Considering that since
the late 1990s China has expanded college enrollment and joined the WTO, the prolongation in higher education and
subsequently career development may postpone youths’ marriage timing. The mechanisms to solve the puzzle are not fully
understood. Suffice it to say that the relationship between educational attainment and marriage timing remains ambiguous.
We may even venture the possibility that higher education institutions or more active social life in college facilitates young
adults’ courtship with future marriage partners. In selecting first marriage partners, they prioritize compatible educational
attainment which may be a proxy for comparable socioeconomic status. Such a pattern goes against established theories
which predict lower homogamy with faster economic development (Smits, Ultee and Lammers, 1998). In summary, the
four decades of rapid economic development in post-reform China have failed (up to now) to deliver a liberalizing effect
on individuals’ private life as predicted by the second demographic transition theorists (Lesthaeghe, 2010).
The key to understand China’s demographic puzzle may lie in the country’s unique institutional and cultural contexts.
From the institutional point of view, the hukou system, as a fundamental institution regulating the legality of marriage
unions and childbirth and choreographing individuals’ life course transition, is the only legal route to childbirth and
childrearing. Marriage registration, preferably with a separate hukou booklet for the new family unit, is functionally and
symbolically consequential in marking individuals’ adulthood transition: Children’s hukou registration, tied to parents’
legal marital status and hukou status, to a large extent determines their life chances, such as their access to school and
other public services. In other words, rather than shifting toward “deinstitutionalization of marriage” in America (Cherlin,
2004), China’s institutional arrangement based on the hukou system makes marriage even more entrenched not only as
an adulthood marker but also a socially and legally sanctioned status. From a cultural perspective, post-reform China,
characterized by the state’s withdrawal in welfare provision, except for a small segment of the population, has seen
a comeback of familism as a social support mechanism amidst dramatic social transformations. According to Yan’s
(2016) longitudinal ethnography in a northern village, there is a rise of descending familism through intergenerational
collaboration and a downward flow of tangible or intangible resources toward raising successful children in the third
generation. Such an orientation, together with a stronger influence of economic prospects on marriage entry (Yu and Xie,
2015b), may mean that marriage decisions are a family collective endeavor, instead of individual preferences, which
explains the lack of systematic changes in marriage behaviors over cohorts.
Limitations of this study and recommended future inquiry are as follows. First, given the nature of cross-sectional
data in this analysis, future longitudinal research tracking the processes of dating, cohabitation, and marriage formation
in real time is needed to lend a life-course perspective in understanding young people’s romantic and family life. Second,
limited by the quantitative research methodology which excels in presenting general patterns but wants nuance and
contextualization, future research could benefit from qualitative research that delves into the grounded perspectives and
meaning-making processes in Chinese youths’ family formation to solve the puzzle described in this paper.
Author’s Contribution

The sole-author owns the authorship to the development of each section of the paper.
Availability of Supporting Data

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on
reasonable request.

Conflicts of Interest
No conflicts of interest were reported by the author.

International Journal of Population Studies | 2018, Volume 4, Issue 1 21