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Understanding Hypergamous Marriages of Chinese Rural Women

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Abstract

In China, hypergamy is a socially desirable marriage but an understudied topic. Less has been written on how personal traits and structural factors are intertwined to shape such marriage. Using national-survey data and employing a binary endogenous regressor probit model, this paper investigates three forms of hypergamous marriages: women marrying men from more prosperous families, women marrying men who are more economically established, and women marrying men with an urban hukou. We assess the interaction of ascribed and achieved personal traits with institutional factors in explaining these upward marriages. Particular attention is paid to the role of hukou status in the making of hypergamy. Our results suggest that most of rural women have to stick to endogamy within their socioeconomic category. Ascribed and achieved traits work on marital outcomes in different ways in the changing socioeconomic contexts, mediated by the endogeneity of hukou status conversion. The likelihood of hypergamous marriages of Chinese women is largely constrained by the role of hukou status.

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Notes

  1. Although the hukou registration is not new in contemporary China, its modern format should not be seen as some sort of unchanging phenomenon left over from the past (Wang 2005).

  2. Upon marriage, a woman should fully belong to her husband’s family and the woman’s obligations should be transferred to her husband’s families. By contrast, a groom’s living standards is slightly affected by a bride’s social status (Lavely 1991). Thus, daughters are socially constructed less valuable than sons due to their gender (Whyte and Xu 2003). Given the limited time during which they serve their natal families, daughters’ education and careers are therefore put a low priority in family development (Fan and Huang 1998).

  3. In the survey, both the individual and household annual incomes were measured by six scales: 0–99 yuan, 100–999 yuan, 1000–29,999 yuan, 30,000–59,999 yuan, 60,000–99,999 yuan, and over 100,000 yuan. 1 US$ = 6.8 yuan.

  4. The respondent’s hukou origin was measured by her mother’s hukou status when the respondent was eighteen years old. Before 1998, a person’s hukou status had to follow the mother’s one. While the survey recorded the respondent’s current place of residence, it contained no information on duration of current residence, residence at the time of hukou transfer, and residence at marriage. Based on the survey information, we can identify those with hukou transfer but cannot identify those who have actually made marriage migration.

  5. See Carrasco (2001) and Giles and Murtazashvili (2010) for discussions on advantages of binary endogenous regressor probit models in causal analysis.

  6. It should be noted that migration alone may not significantly increase chances to marry an urban man, as the restrictive hukou system acts as a barrier to the urban marriage market. Previous research shows that urban-resided but rural-registered women (probably migrants) had a lower marriage hazard than their rural counterparts (Fan 2003; Piotrowski et al. 2016).

  7. Uxorilocal marriage follows a cultural rule to ensure the continuation of the ancestral line. At least one child, or all children, born from the marriage has to adopt the mother’s surname.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by Humanities and Social Science Talent Plan (HSSTP) Project of Shaanxi Province (China), Youth Talent Support Plan of Xi’an University of Finance and Economics and the research funding of the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University. We would like to thank Wen-Jen Tsay for technical support. We are also indebted to the editor and anonymous reviewers for valuable comments. All remaining errors are our own responsibility.

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  1. School of Statistics, Xi’an University of Finance and Economics, No. 2, Weichang South Road, Chang’an District, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710100, People’s Republic of China

    Yan Wei

  2. School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai, 200433, People’s Republic of China

    Li Zhang

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  1. Yan Wei
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Correspondence to Li Zhang.

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Wei, Y., Zhang, L. Understanding Hypergamous Marriages of Chinese Rural Women. Popul Res Policy Rev 35, 877–898 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-016-9407-z

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