Love and Money by Parental Matchmaking: Evidence from Urban Couples in China

Abstract

Parental involvement in marriage matchmaking may distort the optimal spouse choice because parents are willing to substitute love for money. The rationale is that the joint income of married children can be shared among extended family members more easily than mutual attraction felt by the couple themselves, and as a result, the best spouse candidate in the parents' eyes can differ from what is optimal to the individual, even though parents are altruistic and care dearly about their children's welfare. We find supporting evidence for this prediction using a unique sample of urban couples in China in the early 1990s.

Love, money, and parental goods: Does parental matchmaking matter?

“…On joint couple income, the IV results suggest that P arentM atched has a negative eect over the whole sample and the sign of this result is robust to dierent instruments. At the rst glance, this is at odds with our previous work on the urban sample of the same survey (Huang, Jin and Xu, 2012). Further study shows that this dierence is driven by the urban-rural distinction.…”

“…We also nd suggestive evidence that urban and rural areas use dierent supporting mechanisms for parental goods. In urban areas, with more labor market opportunities and more stringent enforcement of the one-child policy, parents rely more on the monetary income channel to ensure old age support, and as a result, parental matchmaking is associated with higher joint couple income (Huang et al, 2012). In contrast, in rural areas, labor market opportunities are fewer and it is easier to evade the one-child policy.…”

“…In addition to extending BMS (2015) and Huang et al (2012), this paper contributes to the marriage literature by highlighting the economic trade-os in parental matchmaking.…”

Marriage outcome and relationship with urban versus rural context for individuals with psychosis in a population-based study in China

“…17 Despite these overall urban advantages, based on the findings of worse outcomes in high-income countries than in LMIC reported in the cross-national WHO studies, we hypothesized that urban contexts in China (where residents are, like high-income countries, relatively rich) might be associated with decreased social integration of persons with psychosis– specifically poorer marriage outcomes--compared to rural contexts. Urban residents with psychosis in China may be disadvantaged in marriage, owing to factors such as increasing individualism, 18 fewer arranged marriages, 19 and a higher recommended marriage age by the government in urban China 20 . Even if marriage is achieved, contextual factors—such as economic pressure for both spouses to earn salaries and decreased availability of extended family 21 may increase rates of divorce among urban residents with psychosis compared with their rural counterparts.…”

Love, Money, and Old Age Support: Does Parental Matchmaking Matter?

“…Second, we examine the issue from the parents' perspective in old age support and explain why parent matchmaking might aect marriage outcomes dierently in urban and rural areas. When we presented Huang, Jin and Xu (2012) Ikkink, Tilburg and Knipscheer, 1999;Ho, 2007). However, none has explored the role that matchmaking methods play in facilitating old age support.…”