"Low-Educated Men May Struggle to Marry... Difficulty Finding Spouses Due to Son Preference in China"

"Urgent Need to Establish Support System for Vulnerable Groups"

A study has found that low-educated men in China are increasingly likely to never marry in their lifetime.

Low-educated men show a 10% unmarried rate until their 40s

[Image source=Pixabay]

According to Chinese media including Jiemian News on the 12th, Jiang Xianling, associate professor at the Institute of Social Psychology at Central University of Finance and Economics, and Cheng Yinan, professor at the School of Labor Economics at Capital University of Economics and Business, published a joint research paper containing these findings in the journal 'Population Research.'

The research team focused on analyzing how education level affects the timing of marriage and childbirth based on Chinese population statistics from 1990 to 2020, a span of 30 years.

Using 1990 as a baseline, they categorized education levels into elementary school graduate or below, middle school graduate, high school graduate, and college or above, and analyzed the data. They found that until ages 29-30, the higher the education level, the higher the proportion of unmarried people.

However, from age 31 onward, the unmarried rate sharply decreased overall and tended to converge to zero. This means that after the prime marriage age, education level did not significantly affect whether one married.

In 2020, the trend that higher education correlated with higher unmarried rates until ages 29-30 remained the same.

However, while those with a high school diploma or higher saw a rapid decline in unmarried rates starting in their early 30s, those with an elementary school education or below maintained an unmarried rate in the 10% range until around age 40.

For women, education is unrelated to marriage from a lifetime perspective... low-educated men face difficulties finding partners

The researchers also analyzed how education affects marriage differently by gender.

Based on 1990 data, highly educated women had higher unmarried rates before their 30s compared to low-educated women, but after age 40, there was little difference.

This indicates that although education delayed marriage timing, for women, education did not significantly influence whether they married over their lifetime.

However, the higher the education, the later women tended to have their first child.

Men, on the other hand, showed different patterns.

Highly educated men had higher unmarried rates than low-educated men before age 29, but after 29, their unmarried rates dropped sharply.

Low-educated men experienced more difficulty finding spouses, with unmarried rates exceeding 20% until their mid-30s.

Son preference and the 'one-child policy' butterfly effect highlight urgent need for policy support systems

In China, a long-standing preference for sons combined with the nearly 40-year 'one-child policy' has caused a serious male-skewed population imbalance.

As of November 2020, China’s population was approximately 1.41178 billion, with males accounting for 51.24% and females 48.76%.

The sex ratio, representing the number of males per 100 females, was 105.07, indicating that the imbalance has not been resolved.

The researchers explained that "low-educated men with an elementary school education or below occupy the most disadvantaged position in the marriage market," and "rural low-educated men may have an even higher rate of lifelong bachelorhood due to difficulties finding spouses." They also emphasized the urgent need to establish policy support systems for marginalized groups.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.