"Bare Branches" and the Marriage Market in Rural China

Abstract

Using data from a village survey in rural China, this study explores the relationships between current prevalence of involuntary bachelorhood and its causes and social consequences at the village level. We find that bachelors, inter-county marriage and marriage fraud exist in all regions, and are expected to become more frequent with the increasing surplus of males born after 1980 entering the marriage market. The marriage squeeze and social problems related to the bachelors are more serious in less-developed western villages, and heterogeneity within central villages is significant. Economic and socio-demographic factors are shown to be the major causes of the prevalence of bachelors at the village level in contemporary rural China. Our findings confirm the negative consequences of the marriage squeeze, and effective policies are urgently needed to respond to and prevent more negative consequences of gender imbalance in the foreseeable future.

Support for Older People in Households With Bare Branches in Rural China: Vulnerability, Dilemmas, and Possible Solutions

“…Three townships in each county were selected according to their levels of economic development. These areas contain the highest levels of "bare branches" in China, as previous studies showed that the "bare branches" were concentrated mainly in underdeveloped regions of China, especially in rural areas of Western China (Das Gupta et al, 2010;Jin et al, 2013). The "bare branches" in these areas could help us to understand a deeper level of the "bare branches" in China.…”

“…It has been estimated that the number of "bare branches" has reached above 30 million and this number is likely to increase after 2030 due to the one child per couple policy (OCP; Ebenstein & Sharygin, 2009;Jiang, Guo, & Li, 2010). "Bare branches" mainly live in less developed rural areas and poorer households in China, where vulnerable groups have a higher dependence on family support due to low levels of state support or social protection (Das Gupta, Ebenstein, & Sharygin, 2010;Jin, Liu, Feldman, & Li, 2013).…”

Mothers’ Subjective Well-Being after Having a Second Child in Current China: A Case Study of Xi’an City

“…[34,47,48]). The work by Jin et al [49] provided one clue, presumably unique to China, as to the transition in sex preference for children: in current China, there is a very high economic cost for men to marry in a context of a surplus of men and a shortage of marriageable women, which might make parents very reluctant to have more than one son, especially in rural areas. The strong practical burden of parenting sons also helps to explain the significant negative effect of having two sons on post-second birth life satisfaction, a result in contrast to that of Margolis and Myrskylä [47], who found little effect of sex preference on parental subjective well-being in European countries.…”

Marriage Squeeze and Intergenerational Support in Contemporary Rural China

“…Co-residing with parents and emotional ties with parents are not the determinants of children’s remaining unmarried, but terminating a child’s bachelorhood by marriage is regarded as essential for continuity of the male line and as the main source of old-age support for parents. Indeed, childlessness is an unforgivable sin in Chinese Confucian ideology concerning filial piety (Jin, et al, 2013; Liu et al, 2014; Zhang & Zhong, 2005). …”