1 Introduction

Profound transformations in marriage and family behavior have occurred in Western industrialized societies since the mid-twentieth century. Scholars have collectively identified these trends—postponement of first marriage, rising cohabitation, declining fertility, and the decoupling of marriage and childbearing—as the second demographic transition (SDT) (Lesthaeghe, 1995, 2010; Lesthaeghe & van de Kaa, 1986). To explain these changes, the SDT framework highlights individuals’ ideational shift—specifically, a heightened adherence to nonconformist individualism and growing desire for self-realization (Lesthaeghe, 2010, 2014). In recent decades, as family lives transform across the globe (United Nations, 2015), demographers have begun to examine the possible diffusion of demographic transition beyond the Global North, in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Bongaarts & Casterline, 2013), Latin America (e.g., Esteve et al., 2012), and East Asia (e.g., Raymo et al., 2015).

Contemporary China has seen a substantial increase in premarital cohabitation, particularly in more developed urban areas and among individuals with higher educational attainment (e.g., Song & Lai, 2022; Xu et al., 2014; Yeung & Hu, 2013; Yu & Xie, 2015). Through the lens of the SDT framework, scholars have posited that changes in people’s values and beliefs, brought forth by rapid economic development and modernization, have made cohabitation in China increasingly socially acceptable (see Raymo et al., 2015). Yet, at the same time, marriage in China continues to be nearly universal and intergenerational expectations surrounding marriage and childbearing have remained entrenched (Raymo et al., 2015; Song & Lai, 2022).

Drawing on the SDT framework, this article considers the gendered ways in which contemporary urban Chinese women and men perceive and make decisions about premarital cohabitation, as they envision their ideal lives and what autonomy and self-realization mean to them. Specifically, I ask: How do urban Chinese women and men (differentially) perceive premarital cohabitation and assess its risks and benefits? How do urban Chinese women and men negotiate parental expectations about cohabitation and marriage, as they navigate their own ideals and aspirations for independence and individualistic fulfillment?

Qualitative data are especially well-equipped to uncover individuals’ deeply-held beliefs and complex attitudes. I thus rely on 65 in-depth interviews with highly educated young urban Chinese women and men. Since the 1950s, China’s hukou (household registration) system has created deep-seated rural-urban differences in individuals’ life chances, engendering what some scholars call “one country, two societies” (Whyte, 2010). In this article, I thus limit my scope to women and men in urban China.

I demonstrate that while highly educated young urban Chinese men predominantly view cohabitation in a positive light as a risk-reduction strategy for avoiding incompatible or rushed marriages, highly educated young urban Chinese women, despite their attitudinal acceptance, still consider cohabitation to be a risk-amplification arrangement in practice that increases the possibility of uncertain marriage prospect, unsafe sex, and reputational damages. At the same time, these young women, but not young men, often have to confront and strategize about persistent parental expectations that strongly discourage women’s premarital cohabitation. These young women, when cohabiting, thus closely manage information disclosure to their parents. As a result, while male respondents regard marriage to be neither the necessary precondition nor the end goal of cohabitation, female respondents, who otherwise emphasize autonomy and individualistic fulfillment and espouse gender egalitarian views, continue to desire a close linkage between cohabitation and marriage.

This article makes two contributions to existing literature on the SDT framework in non-Western contexts: First, current research on cohabitation in China has predominantly relied on quantitative analyses of survey data. This article makes an empirical contribution by leveraging the unique strength of qualitative in-depth interviews in examining individuals’ ideation and decision-making. In so doing, this article articulates the gender asymmetry in how women and men perceive cohabitation’s risks, benefits, and link to marriage. Second, by attuning to such gender asymmetry, I elucidate the gendered tension between privately-held ideals of individualism vis-à-vis enduring social norms of female marriageability, as women and men differentially navigate parental expectations regarding cohabitation. This article thus makes a theoretical contribution by bringing a careful consideration of gender into the SDT framework.

2 Theoretical background and previous research

2.1 The SDT framework and China as a theory-advancement case

Starting from observations of demographic patterns and trends in Western and Northern Europe and North America since the mid-twentieth century, the SDT framework highlights individuals’ ideational changes in understanding the transformations in contemporary family lives. Specifically, in order to explain the observed retreat from marriage, rise of non-marriage unions such as cohabitation, and decoupling of marriage and childbearing in Western societies, the SDT framework draws on the Maslowian theory of “higher-order needs” (Maslow, 1954) and centers individuals’ growing “existential and expressive needs” and desires for autonomy and self-realization (Lesthaeghe, 2010, p. 218).

Among the various empirical pursuits within the SDT framework, research on cohabitation in Western societies has been an important one. The rise and diffusion of cohabitation in Scandinavia and Western Europe since the 1960s present one of the early signs of the second demographic transition (Lesthaeghe, 2010). Cohabitation—its emergence, prevalence, link vis-à-vis marriage, and association with other societal- and individual-level characteristics—is regarded as emblematic of changes in the social norms and cultural scripts governing heterosexual marriages (e.g., see Cherlin, 2004; Smock, 2000). Based on empirical observations in Western societies, particularly in the United States, rising non-marital cohabitation is theorized as one of the key drivers of the deinstitutionalization of marriage (Cherlin, 2004). In particular, Cherlin (2004) has identified four stages in the growth of cohabitation—a fringe phenomenon at first, a precursor to marriage in the second stage, an acceptable alternative to marriage in stage three, and finally becoming indistinguishable from marriage in stage four.

In recent years, East Asian societies are witnessing rapid socioeconomic development, on one hand, and rising age at first marriage and sustained low fertility, on the other (e.g., Basten & Jiang, 2015; Raymo et al., 2015). As such, scholars have increasingly become interested in whether and to what extent the SDT framework can be extended to the East Asian context (see Lesthaeghe, 2010).

China presents a fruitful context for such theory-extension efforts. Historians of modern China have described China’s modernization as characterized by “compressed temporality” (Da & Wang, 2015). That is, over the past century, with dramatic development occurring over a much shorter period of time, multiple visions of modernity are compressed into one another, creating tensions and ambiguity in all aspects of social life, including gender and family relations (Da & Wang, 2015, for similar articulations, see also Chang, 1999; Ji, 2017; Yeung & Hu 2016). On one hand, economic development has taken place intensely since China’s 1978 market reform. Drastic educational expansion began since the mid-1990s (see e.g., Hannum & Buchmann, 2005). The World Bank estimates put China’s gross tertiary education enrollment rate at 58% in 2020, a sharp increase from the number (24%) in 2010 (World Bank, 2022). Gender parity in educational attainment has steadily increased at all levels and Chinese women are now outperforming men in tertiary education (Hannum & Xie, 1994; Mu & Xie, 2014; World Bank, 2022). Specifically, the gender parity index in tertiary education has remained above one (i.e., the number of female enrollees surpassing that of male enrollees) since 2008 (World Bank, 2022). The gross enrollment rate in higher education is 64% for women and 54% for men in 2020 (World Bank, 2022). Public attitudes are growing tolerant toward premarital sex and premarital cohabitation (Yeung & Hu, 2016). Young adults in major cities have reported greater decoupling of romantic relationships/sexual intimacy vis-à-vis marriage (Farrer, 2002, 2014).

On the other hand, research has consistently demonstrated China’s gender revolution to be a stalled and incomplete one (e.g., Ji et al., 2017). With the re-privatization of care during the reform era, women again shoulder the lion’s share of unpaid household labor and care work (Ji et al., 2017; Zhou, 2019). Despite increases in female educational attainment, highly educated urban young women still experience significant labor market gender discriminations, as employers perceive female workers to be preoccupied with their childbearing and childrearing responsibilities (e.g., Zhong & Guo, 2017; Zhou, 2019). Throughout the one-child policy era and since the policy’s universal relaxation in 2016, female reproduction has remained at the center of state regulation and scrutiny (e.g., Wang et al., 2013; Zhou, 2021). Normative expectations of female chastity have endured (Farrer et al., 2012; Parish et al., 2007). In recent years, scholars have noticed a re-entrenchment of traditional gender norms that emphasize both the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the male-breadwinner/female-caregiver labor division (e.g., Sun & Chen, 2015; Wang, 2020).

Taken together, contemporary China presents a case in which gender and family relations are characterized not only by dramatic transformations, but also by profound continuity, ambiguity, and paradox. Against this backdrop, how do highly educated young urban Chinese women and men perceive and make decisions about cohabitation, as they articulate their own desires and ideals of autonomy and self-realization, on one hand, and navigate intergenerational expectations and competing social norms, on the other? Examining this question presents a fertile ground for additional evaluations of the SDT framework beyond Western industrialized societies.

2.2 Extant research on cohabitation in China

Drawing on the SDT framework, a bourgeoning literature has documented rising cohabitation in China. Specifically, using longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies, Ma & Rizzi (2017) find that the proportion of marriages that are preceded by cohabitation has risen from 1.3% in the 1980s to 14% of all marriages in the 2000s (p. 1237). Yu & Xie (2021) find that among the early 1980s birth cohort, nearly one-quarter (24% of women and 24.4% of men) have cohabited before marriage (pp. 599–600). Zhang (2017) finds that while premarital cohabitation is linked to increased risk of divorce during China’s early reform years, such an association has since disappeared. To understand the increasing prevalence of cohabitation in China, emergent studies have highlighted the role of educational attainment: Yu & Xie (2015) demonstrate that higher educational level is associated with men’s greater likelihood of cohabiting before marriage. Similarly, Wang & Kan (2021) show that unlike many Western societies, the positive association between premarital cohabitation and educational attainment has remained strong in China.

One of the central components of the SDT framework is ideational. By emphasizing individuals’ ideational shift toward greater individualism as one of the key determinants of changes in family behavior and large-scale demographic transition, the SDT framework is concerned with how individuals attach meanings to family relations (i.e., marriage, romantic union, childbearing, etc.) as they make sense and articulate their desires and needs for self-realization. However, extant studies on cohabitation in contemporary China have predominantly relied on analyses of survey data, focusing on associations between quantifiable sociodemographic measures. Such an approach, while providing a bird’s-eye view of the aggregate-level trends and patterns of cohabitation, inevitably obscures individuals’ deeply-held and complex beliefs and ideations. Song & Lai (2020, 2022) provide two notable exceptions by incorporating qualitative data from in-depth interviews. However, both studies only include young cohabiting couples that have already self-selected into cohabitation. Such studies are thus unable to capture the full range of attitudes, aspirations, and decision-making regarding cohabitation from unmarried individuals of different relationship status.

2.3 The current investigation

The current investigation moves beyond extant studies on cohabitation in China in two meaningful ways: First, empirically I adopt a qualitative approach, drawing on in-depth interviews with never-married women and men across three relationship categories (i.e., unpartnered, partnered and non-cohabiting, or cohabiting). Given the nature of a qualitative small-N non-random design, findings from in-depth interviews are not meant to be representative. Rather, consistent with prior demographic research that relies on qualitative methods (e.g., Brinton et al., 2018; Brinton & Oh, 2019), I leverage the unique strength of in-depth interviews in uncovering interviewees’ deeply-held beliefs and complex ideations. I elucidate individuals’ perceptions and decision-making regarding cohabitation in the holistic context of their aspirations and ideals about individual autonomy and self-realization. In so doing, I center the ideational component of the SDT framework throughout my analysis.

Second, the SDT framework speaks of individuals’ ideational shift and “higher-order needs,” without making much gendered distinction. Yet, people’s lived experiences—the bodies they inhabit, what they desire as good, the social norms they encounter, and the cultural scripts that are available to them—are inherently gendered. By explicitly adopting a gender lens and comparing women and men, this article highlights the theoretical merit of specifying a gender dimension in the SDT framework.

3 Data and methods

3.1 Sample and recruitment

The qualitative data come from 65 in-depth interviews with young women (N = 35) and men (N = 30) in two Chinese metropolitan areas (Nanjing and Beijing).Footnote 1 All interviews were conducted by the author between January 2016 and July 2017. Table 1 presents the sociodemographic characteristics of the qualitative sample.

Table 1 Qualitative Sample Sociodemographic Characteristics
Full size table

Highly educated individuals are often seen as the vanguard in ideational shifts and changes in marriage and family behavior (e.g., Brinton et al., 2018; Thornton, 2001, 2005). As discussed above, contemporary China has witnessed dramatic education expansion, on one hand, and rising gender parity in higher educational attainment, on the other. I have thus restricted the qualitative sample to individuals who have completed some form of tertiary education: Other than two associate’s degree holders, all interviewees have graduated from four-year universities. Aside from one male doctoral student, all interviewees were employed in entry- or mid-level professional jobs, such as financial and marketing analysts, software and hardware engineers, civil servants, and school teachers.

All respondents are never-married, cis-gender, heterosexual-identifying, and between 22 and 35 years old. I recruited interviewees across three relationship categories: (1) unpartnered, (2) partnered and non-cohabiting, and (3) cohabiting. At the time of the interview, nine male respondents and 12 female respondents were in romantic relationships, while the rest were unpartnered. Among partnered interviewees, three men and six women were cohabiting with their partners. Partnered respondents are not in unions with each other. For unpartnered interviewees, I did not select on their romantic histories. Among this group, 10 women and 11 men disclosed that they had romantic experiences in the past.

I have limited my sample to never-married young women and men because these individuals are often in the midst of making union formation decisions. Focusing on this group thus enables me to capture individuals’ views and decision-making surrounding cohabitation in situ, rather than retrospectively. Along the same line, individuals who are already cohabiting may frame how they perceive cohabitation based on their ongoing experiences. As such, unlike previous qualitative studies that recruited only cohabiting couples (e.g., Song & Lai, 2020, 2022), I have intentionally included unpartnered and non-cohabiting respondents in the study design as well, so as to capture women’s and men’s attitudes and decision-making surrounding cohabitation across the full range of relationship experiences.

Taken together, the sample selection criteria balance two considerations in qualitative research—avoiding over-fragmentation of the final sample while ensuring adequate data variability for meaningful comparisons (see also Brinton et al., 2018). Interviewees were recruited through snowball sampling. The first round of recruitment relied on my own various networks. After participating, each interviewee was then invited to circulate the recruitment flyer among her/his own social networks. In order to avoid excessive network clustering, I interviewed a maximum of three respondents from the same “seed” in the referral chain.

3.2 Interview protocol

The interview protocol followed a semi-structured format, covering a wide range of questions on respondents’ attitudes and aspirations about individual fulfillment and self-realization, union formation, and family lives. Specifically, to examine individuals’ perceptions and decision-making regarding cohabitation, I started by asking each interviewee, in neutral phrasing, whether she/he considers premarital cohabitation to be acceptable. I then followed up with a series of open-ended prompts. These prompts asked respondents to further elaborate on (1) the reasonings underlying their stated views on cohabitation, (2) their perceived benefits and risks of cohabitation, and (3) any preconditions that they believe to be necessary for the entry into cohabitation. Moreover, the interview questions probed into respondents’ desired link and sequence—or the lack thereof—between cohabitation and marriage. I also asked all interviewees about the (anticipated) reactions from their parents, if/when they cohabit.

To study individuals’ ideals and aspirations about autonomy and self-realization, I asked each respondent to envision his/her ideal life, as detailed as possible, over the next few years. I then asked each interviewee to describe, again in details, what they regard as an ideal woman and an ideal man.

Additionally, the interview protocol included a set of items adapted from the World Value Survey (WVS) module on gender. These statements served to further assess respondents’ gender role ideology, on one hand, and their level of adherence to nonconformist individualism and acceptance toward non-marriage unions, on the other. After reading out an item, I first asked the respondents to rate their (dis)agreement with the statement. I then followed up with a series of prompts, probing into the reasonings underlying their stated views. For the purpose of this article, four items on the linkage between marriage and childbearing vis-à-vis self-realization for women and men are particularly illuminating. These four items are: (a) A woman needs to get married in order to be fulfilled; (b) A man needs to get married in order to be fulfilled; (c) A woman needs to have children in order to be fulfilled; and (d) A man needs to have children in order to be fulfilled.Footnote 2

3.3 Data collection and analysis

In compliance with the study’s IRB protocol on research ethics, all interviews were recorded after obtaining respondents’ consent. Recordings were anonymized and later transcribed. All names included in this article are pseudonyms. On average, interviews lasted between 1.5 to two hours. I share some similar sociodemographic characteristics with my interviewees—most notably, age, educational level, and linguistic affinity. My positionality has helped me in fostering rapport with my respondents.

During and immediately after each interview, I wrote a memo that recorded my first-round impressions of the notable themes discussed. Over the course of data analysis, I have repeatedly returned to the data—listening to recordings, transcribing interviews, and writing analytical memos. By listening to interview recordings throughout the data analysis process, I was able to stay attuned to the emotional cues in the conversations. Writing memos enabled me to identify and organize salient themes emerging from the data. Combining my inductive discoveries with the existing theoretical articulations of the SDT framework, I abductively constructed a set of codes and coded all interview transcriptions.

I stopped recruiting and interviewing when data saturation was reached—that is, when each additional interview did not reveal major new themes (see Guest et al., 2006). I translated all quotes presented in this article from verbatim transcriptions.

4 Findings

Results are organized into two sections: I start with male and female respondents’ attitudes toward cohabitation. Specifically, I articulate the gender asymmetry in women’s and men’s perceived benefits vs. risks of premarital cohabitation. To understand such gender asymmetry, the second section then illustrates how women and men differentially confront and navigate gendered parental expectations about cohabitation. I elucidate the gendered tension between privately-held ideals of individualism vis-à-vis enduring social norms of female marriageability. In so doing, this article highlights the need for a careful treatment of gender within the SDT framework.

4.1 Gender asymmetry in perceived benefits and risks of cohabitation

4.1.1. “Without living together, you can see nothing”: Cohabitation as risk-reduction for men. Almost all (29 out of 30) male respondents feel positively about cohabitation. Consistent with qualitative findings from other social contexts (e.g., Huang et al., 2011 on the U.S. young adults), the young men in my sample similarly emphasize the benefit of cohabitation as a “test run” for marriage. That is, these male respondents see cohabitation as an opportunity to thoroughly evaluate a couple’s compatibility. As an illustrative example, meet Lane, a 30-year-old man working in a technology start-up. One year into their relationship, Lane and his girlfriend decided to start cohabiting. At the time of the interview, the couple have been living together for almost two years. When asked about his views on cohabitation, Lane stated: “We now have a better sense of the issues that can come up in our life together…Cohabitation is a chance to find out if two people should get married.”

Like Lane, over two-thirds of the male respondents, regardless of their current relationship status, highlight the benefit of cohabitation as reducing the risk of an incompatible marriage. For example, consider Shawn, a 28-year-old and unpartnered hardware engineer. While disagreeing with the statements stating that a man or a woman needs to be married in order to feel fulfilled, Shawn views marriage as a necessary life experience for himself. As he envisions his ideal life a few years from now, Shawn wishes he can be married by then. Using the language of “risk,” Shawn expressed his belief in the necessity of cohabitation:

There may be certain issues in a person’s life, troubles with their habits…If you don’t know about these things before and they are revealed only after marriage…it’s a large risk for the life after marriage.

Like Shawn, time and again, male respondents draw on the logic of risk reduction when articulating their attitudes toward cohabitation. For example, Mason, 25-year-old and unpartnered, turns to the experiences of his colleagues in order to describe the risk of not cohabiting before marriage:

The home environment and the way of life, every aspects of life, need a period of adjustment [after marriage]. Since I started working, I got to know some men and women who are older, and I saw their experiences and lessons. Like those who did not cohabit before marriage, their marriages are going badly.

Similarly, Gene, a 29-year-old and unpartnered high school teacher, quipped: “Without living together, you can see nothing. What can you really tell from just going shopping together or having dinner and watching a movie together every three days?”

Along the same line of viewing premarital cohabitation as a beneficial risk-reduction strategy, some male respondents further attach a moral meaning to cohabitation—that it is “more responsible” to cohabit before getting married. To these men, entering into a marriage without having first cohabited is reckless, fickle, and not taking marriage as seriously as one should. As an illustrative example, meet Sawyer, a 23-year-old project manager working in an internet technology company. Sawyer does not yet have a girlfriend. Nevertheless, he feels strongly about the need of cohabitation en route to marriage. Invoking the metaphor of a “test drive,” Sawyer stated:

It is so necessary to cohabit before marriage. Before buying a car, you must go for a test drive right? Isn’t marriage a more important and serious decision than car purchase?

With reprimand in his voice, Sawyer went on: “I have known so many cases that people just rush in and then rush out of marriages.” Similarly, to Clay, a 26-year-old and unpartnered journalist, cohabitation before marriage is the more considered and “correct” approach. Clay stated:

If you haven’t lived together, how can you be sure that you want spend the rest of your lives together? Before marriage you cannot really anticipate what issues may come up so living together is the careful thing to do. To cohabit before marriage is to take marriage more seriously.

On one hand, most male respondents highlight the benefit of premarital cohabitation as reducing the risk of an incompatible or rushed marriage. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of these young men simultaneously reject the notion that cohabitation has to result in marriage. Specifically, only eight out of the 30 male respondents believe that cohabitation should lead to marriage. For example, meet Don: Since joining a government agency immediately after college graduation, Don, who is 22-year-old, has begun cohabiting with his girlfriend. Don sees cohabitation as the necessary precondition for marriage. Yet for Don, marriage is not the end goal of cohabitation. Don stated:

Of course you have to cohabit before getting married. You have to evaluate each other on all aspects. Marriage is not like buying something from the store, it’s not like you can easily return it. Many issues can only be revealed when you are living together. If you can solve these issues, just solve them. If you cannot solve them, you observe for some more time. If there are issues that you can neither solve nor stand, then just say goodbye.

To unpartnered men like Joe, who is 26-year-old and working in a well-regarded news agency, cohabitation is to determine if a couple should get married—or break up. In the words of Joe:

So you have to see if there are any problems before getting married [by cohabiting]. If there are problems that cannot be resolved, just amicably and decisively break up while the cost is still low. If you get married and then discover these unsolvable problems, then you are really in trouble.

Moreover, while male respondents largely treat cohabitation as the necessary precondition for marriage, a substantial proportion of these young men desire the entry into cohabitation itself to be a carefree transition. To these men, not only is marriage not the end goal of cohabitation, the prospect of marriage shall also not be the necessary precondition for beginning cohabiting. Rather, these male respondents have described their ideal entry into cohabitation as a process filled with fluidity and ease. For example, when asked how he made the decision to cohabit, Lane stated: “It just feels natural when our love is deep enough.” Don is even more explicit that marriage has altogether not been a consideration in his decision to cohabit. Rather, to Don, cohabitation seems to be the obvious “next step” after moving out of his college dormitory. According to Don: “We both have [sexual] needs…and I need companionship.”

Like their cohabiting counterparts, many unpartnered men too agree that cohabitation should not depend on the prospect of marriage and that the entry into cohabitation should be “natural and fun.” For example, consider Dashan, who is 25-year-old and working in IT. To Dashan, cohabitation is for “enjoying the process.” Dashan stated:

I have thought a lot about it. I think if you make it [cohabitation] too ‘result-oriented’ about marriage, it loses its fun and original flavor. Cohabitation should just be about getting to know each other and enjoying the process.

Zeke, 25-year-old and unpartnered, shared a similar view:

It should be that we live together just because we want to. I want to spend my days with her. Doing what makes the two of us happy is enough. There is no need to be like ‘oh now we have to think about marriage.’

Taken together, emphasizing the benefit of cohabitation as a risk-reduction strategy, male respondents, across relationship categories, have consistently idealized a one-sided link between cohabitation and marriage: These highly educated urban young men regard cohabitation as a necessary precursor to marriage. Yet, to these men, cohabitation does not depend on a clear prospect of marriage. Instead, their ideal initiation of cohabitation is a low-stake affair. Simply put, to the majority of the male respondents, while cohabitation should precede marriage, marriage is not the end goal of cohabitation.

4.1.2. “Nothing in life is really sure”: Cohabitation as risk-amplification for women. In contrast, female respondents are much more ambivalent toward premarital cohabitation. Whereas all but one male respondents view cohabitation in a positively light, 25 out of 35 female respondents believe cohabitation to be acceptablewomen and men as they make marriage—but these women’s acceptance is largely conditional. Although many female respondents also see the benefit of cohabitation as a “test run” for marriage, the majority of these highly educated urban young women are adamant that cohabitation is acceptable only when the prospect of marriage is clear and sure. Moreover, such desire for a close link between cohabitation and marriage often stands in sharp contrast to these women’s otherwise individualistic ideals.

For example, consider Lindsey, a 31-year-old unpartnered researcher. Lindsey believes in women’s individualistic pursuit and fulfillment: She strongly agrees with statements depicting women’s equal rights in higher education and employment. Lindsey rejects the male-breadwinner/female-caregiver labor division. When envisioning her ideal life over the next few years, Lindsey, self-assured and assertive, is mostly concerned with the kind of promotion she could get at work. Based on the propositions of the SDT framework, one may thus expect Lindsey to also hold accepting views toward non-marriage unions. Yet, as our conversation turned to cohabitation, Lindsey felt deeply conflicted:

Of course it’s a good idea to cohabit for a while and get adjusted before marriage. But if you cohabit and that doesn’t end in marriage, and you have to marry someone else. It’s not good. It’s not good for women, reputation-wise. I completely will not accept cohabitation if marriage is not guaranteed.

Female respondents who are currently partnered have expressed similar views. Meet Faye, a 30-year-old lecturer in a local college. At the time of the interview, Faye and her partner have been actively planning their wedding. Like Lindsey, Faye too believes in women’s individualistic fulfillment, on one hand, and feels uneasy about cohabitation, on the other. Faye’s boyfriend had suggested cohabitation multiple times in the past and Faye only relented after the couple’s engagement, with the added condition that their cohabitation shall not last too long. The couple ultimately cohabited for a little under one month. To Faye, a guarantee of marriage is paramount before cohabitation. Even with the guarantee (in the form of her engagement), Faye still worries that cohabitation may reduce a male partner’s incentive for wanting to get married. Faye stated:

If you cohabit without having made sure that marriage is going to happen, then you are really hurting yourself. Cohabitation has to carry a certain promise. Otherwise, he is just toying with you. I will not accept that at all. And I also would advise against a long cohabitation. A couple of months are fine. If the cohabitation period is long, then for men, marriage will lose its appeal. Like, married or not, his life is the same.

In this sense, while male respondents largely emphasize the risk of not cohabiting before marriage, female respondents have repeatedly described various gendered risks of cohabitation. To start, many female respondents regard cohabitation as risky in light of the uncertain link between cohabitation and marriage. Yunfan, a 24-year-old woman who recently started dating, exemplifies these women. Although the couple are from the same city, Yunfan’s boyfriend rents his own apartment whereas Yunfan lives at home with her parents. When asked whether she would consider cohabiting with her partner, Yunfan stated: “Not at all. Nothing in life is really sure. Even if he promises that we are going to get married, it’s not like that he cannot go back on his words.”

Yunfan is not unique. To Xin, a 28-year-old unpartnered elementary school teacher, cohabitation is only acceptable if the couple have already registered their marriage. In Xin’s words:

I don’t want to cohabit before our marriage is registered…maybe this sounds silly? But I just feel like, after the marriage is registered, then there is trust and also legal protection. At that point, although without a wedding, I’d feel fine living together.

Similarly, consider Shelly, who is 27-year-old, unpartnered, and working in a government agency. Straightforward and speaking matter-of-factly, Shelly strongly disagrees with the notion that a woman needs marriage or childbearing in order to feel fulfilled. Yet, Shelly completely rejects the possibility of cohabitation without a clear guarantee of marriage, deeming it a risky move:

I’d only dare to give myself away when I’m completely sure about the other person. So if cohabiting, it has to be after we are engaged.

Secondly, some female respondents have raised the possibility of unsafe sex as another gendered risk of cohabitation. For example, Yunfan is deeply worried about unintended pregnancy—and what to do about it—if she cohabits with her partner. Similarly, consider Suli: At the time of the interview, Suli and her boyfriend, who lives and works in another city, have been dating for over five years. The couple plan to get married in the near future and Suli is in the process of relocating to join her partner. Suli, who is 26 years old, foresees the two of them living together after her move. On one hand, Suli believes that cohabitation will be a good “test run” for marriage. On the other hand, citing the risk of unsafe sex, Suli is equally adamant that had the prospect of marriage not been certain, she would never have agreed to cohabit with her boyfriend: “I don’t think I can accept cohabitation if it is not for marriage, then I’d worry about sexually transmitted diseases.”

In addition to the uncertainty of marriage prospect and the possibility of unsafe sex, more than half of the female respondents have highlighted reputational damages as the third gendered risk of cohabitation. In the words of Vivian, a 26-year-old unpartnered illustrator, “it [cohabitation] can be so damaging for women.” As another illustrative example, consider Sharon, who is 28-year-old, unpartnered, and working in customer service. Sharon rejects the notion that a woman’s fulfillment is rooted in marriage and childbearing. Resisting the male-breadwinner/female-caregiver labor division, Sharon believes in women’s equal rights in higher education and employment. Yet when asked about her views toward cohabitation, Sharon worries:

For women, cohabitation depresses a woman’s value. From what I have seen, it’s like you lose you value in the eyes of the man and his family. They feel that you are already living with him, so what additional choices do you have, other than marrying him? You have no other choices and you lose your value.

Taken together, this section illustrates the gender asymmetry in how highly educated young urban Chinese women and men perceive cohabitation’s benefits, risks, and link to marriage. Among male respondents, cohabitation is overwhelmingly valued as a risk-reduction strategy—a “test drive” for evaluating a couple’s compatibility for marriage. These men thus emphasize the risk of not cohabiting. At the same time, male respondents overall do not regard a sure prospect of marriage as the necessary precondition for cohabitation, nor do they believe that cohabitation has to result in marriage. To these men, their ideal entry into cohabitation is one with fluidity and ease.

In stark contrast, highly educated young urban Chinese women are much more ambivalent about premarital cohabitation, often despite their otherwise adherence to gender egalitarian and individualistic ideals. Although female respondents similarly see the benefit of cohabitation as a “test run” for marriage, their acceptance of cohabitation largely depends on a clear, if not guaranteed, prospect of marriage. Moreover, female respondents have articulated several gendered risks of cohabitation, in the forms of uncertain marriage prospect, unsafe sex, and reputational damages. As such, among these highly educated urban young women, cohabitation is largely believed to be a risk-amplification arrangement.

4.2 Gendered tension: negotiating parental expectations

The women in my sample are by no means “traditional.” Highly educated, young, and urban, the majority of the female respondents espouse gender egalitarian beliefs. As the previous section has also illustrated, these women believe in women’s autonomy and self-realization: Female interviewees overwhelmingly support women’s and men’s equal rights in paid employment and higher education. More than 80% of the female respondents reject the notion that women’s (and men’s) personal fulfillment depends on marriage and childbearing. When envisioning their ideal lives, the women in my sample frequently emphasize their goals in individualistic achievements, such as educational and career advancement. Similarly, when describing an ideal woman, these female interviewees often put “independence” at the top of their list of desirable traits. Based on the articulations of the SDT framework, one may thus not expect such a deep-seated ambivalence toward cohabitation from these women. To further understand this disjoint, I now zoom in on parental expectations around cohabitation that women and men differentially confront. In so doing, this section elucidates the gendered tension between privately-held ideals of individualism, on one hand, and entrenched social norms of female marriageability, on the other.

When asked about anticipated parental reactions toward their (potential) cohabitation, time and again, male respondents have nonchalantly dismissed the question. Out of the 30 young men in my sample, 24 explicitly stated that their parents would neither interfere nor object when/if they cohabit before marriage. Payton, 27-year-old and unpartnered, presents a typical example. In the words of Payton: “My parents would totally be fine with it [cohabitation], because they always support all my decisions. They always tell me that as long as I am happy, they will not interfere in my life.”

In sharp contrast, female respondents are far more concerned with parental reactions toward their premarital cohabitation. Among the 35 young women in my sample, more than half are certain that their parents would strongly object and interfere, should they choose to cohabit before marriage. Maya exemplifies these women. Thirty-year-old and unpartnered, Maya runs her own small business. Fiercely independent, Maya strongly believes in women’s self-realization, emphasizing women’s equal pursuits of higher education and employment. Yet, Maya is conflicted about cohabitation, feeling the strong pull of her parents’ expectations. In Maya’s words:

I feel really ambivalent and undecided. Sometimes I think cohabitation is not good for women, and then I think, perhaps it [female chastity] is not as important. My parents for sure cannot accept if I cohabit. They’d think, even if you say it’s for marriage, what if you two do not end up marrying?

According to Maya, her parents regard cohabitation—and its uncertain link with marriage—as detrimental to their daughter’s subsequent marriage prospect. Mina, who is 25-year-old, unpartnered, and working in an NGO, shared a similar sentiment: “My parents won’t accept. My parents think it hurts the woman’s interest [when she marries].”

Both female and male respondents are acutely aware of the double standard and norms of female marriageability reflected in such parental expectations about cohabitation—that “men have nothing to lose” when cohabitation does not result in marriage. As a pair of illustrative examples, consider Nancy and Zeke. Nancy, 28-year-old and unpartnered, has cohabited in the past with a previous partner. Nancy takes care to hide her past cohabitation from her parents, whereas the cohabitation experience of Nancy’s older brother is open knowledge within their family. Fully attuned to this difference, Nancy stated:

My parents still don’t know [about my previous cohabitation]. Intentionally I am keeping it from them. My parents can accept their son, my older brother, cohabiting, but they definitely cannot accept their daughter, me, cohabiting.

Correspondingly, according to Zeke, whom I have introduced in the previous section:

My parents would feel fine if I cohabit before marriage. They won’t bother me in my own business. They won’t have it though if my older sister were to cohabit, because she is a girl.

In this sense, gendered parental expectations about cohabitation echo and reinforce the gender asymmetry in how male vs. female respondents perceive cohabitation’s risks, benefits, and link to marriage. To some, such parental expectations have become an obstacle during the transition into cohabitation. For instance, meet Dave, a 32-year-old data scientist. At the time of the interview, Dave and his girlfriend have been dating for almost a year. Despite Dave’s strong desire for cohabitation, his partner, a local woman, is still living at home. Deeply frustrated, Dave attributes their less-than-satisfactory living arrangement to the familial pressure his girlfriend faces, which differs sharply from what Dave sees as his own parents’ attitudes:

I really want us to start living together. But her family disagrees so what can I do? Like everyone in her family seem to all have something to say about it. I see people, when they move to our city, they live together. Sometimes they eventually get married and sometimes they break up, it’s all fine. But she lives at home, it’s so annoying.

Author

How would your parents feel if you cohabit before marriage?

Dave

They are fine. Men’s parents won’t be bothered. Men have nothing to lose.

Even for those who have decided to cohabit, parental expectations continue to loom large, but only for women. Lane, whom I have introduced above, described reactions from his parents and his girlfriend’s parents as follows: “My parents are totally fine with us cohabiting. Her parents don’t have as much trust.”

Like Lane, none of the cohabiting male respondents had worried about how their parents would react as they transitioned into cohabitation, nor have these men hidden the fact of their premarital cohabitation from their parents. All reported breezily that their parents “feel just fine.” In stark contrast, all cohabiting female respondents have adopted various strategies in order to carefully manage information disclosure to their parents. For example, despite a clear prospect of marriage, Faye, whom I have introduced in the previous section, did not, nor does she plan to, tell her parents about having cohabited with her partner.

Faye is not unique. Consider Kelley, a 26-year-old woman. At the time of the interview, Kelley and her boyfriend have been dating for almost four years. After moving out of the school dormitories upon graduating from their respective master’s programs, Kelley and her boyfriend found an apartment and moved in together. As our conversation turned to how her parents and her boyfriend’s parents reacted to their cohabitation, Kelley stated candidly about how she had strategically misrepresented her living arrangement:

His parents have always felt just fine about us living together. My parents cannot accept it at first and they are more OK with us living in the same apartment now, only because I told them that we are living in two separate bedrooms. In fact of course we are living in the same bedroom. My parents believe that if you, a woman, do it [cohabit] before marriage, he [the partner] will no longer cherish you.

As another illustrative example, meet Autumn. Autumn left her hometown when she was accepted by a prestigious university for undergraduate studies. After graduation, Autumn found employment and stayed in the same city. At the time of the interview, Autumn, who is now 26-year-old, has been cohabiting with her boyfriend for several months. According to Autumn, the couple mutually decided to live together in order to save on rent and other living expense. Autumn strongly believes in women’s individualistic fulfillment. When envisioning an ideal woman, she highlights the quality of “continued self-betterment” and emphasizes the importance of an independent career path. To Autumn, in addition to its economic benefits, cohabitation also provides a much-needed chance to work out any kinks in the relationship before marriage. On the surface, Autumn—her attitudinal and behavioral acceptance of cohabitation—may seem like a typical case that conforms to the aggregate patterns described by the SDT framework. However, deeper into our conversation, Autumn opened up about her lingering reservations about cohabitation, despite clearly seeing its benefits. Autumn is especially resolved that her parents must not find out: “My parents don’t know, they cannot ever know. If they find out, for sure they will rush to where we live and strong-arm us into getting married right away.”

Taken together, parental expectations that discourage women’s, but not men’s, premarital cohabitation have endured, reflecting entrenched sexual double standard and norms about female marriageability. Such gendered parental expectations about cohabitation echo the gender asymmetry in female and male respondents’ articulations of cohabitation’s risks vs. benefits and their desired linkage between cohabitation and marriage. For non-cohabiting interviewees, gendered parental expectations can sometimes deter the transition into cohabitation. Among those who have cohabited, women, but not their male counterparts, rely on various strategies in order to carefully manage information disclosure to their parents about their cohabitation.

The SDT framework has emphasized how individuals’ adherence to the ideals of individualism shapes their marriage and family behavior. By turning to how highly educated young urban Chinese women and men differentially navigate parental expectations surrounding cohabitation, this section illustrates that women, despite their individualistic ideals and desires for autonomy and self-realization, still have to confront enduring social norms about female marriageability. Such gendered tension, between privately-held ideals of individualism vis-à-vis norms that are lagging behind, underlies highly educated young urban Chinese women’s often ambivalent attitudes and decision-making about cohabitation. Attuning to such gendered tension further demonstrates the importance of gendering the SDT framework—that is, sharpening the analytical gaze to see beyond “individuals” and recognizing the gendered social realities faced by women and men as they make marriage and family decisions.

5 Discussions and conclusion

From “compressed temporality” (Da & Wang, 2015) to “mosaic temporality” (Ji, 2017), scholars have described the gender and family system in contemporary China as one of profound paradox (e.g., Da & Wang, 2015; Ji, 2017; Yeung & Hu, 2016). Specifically, Ji (2017) has elucidated how interwoven cultural and institutional forces of Confucian patriarchy, socialist traditions, and neoliberal capitalist development have engendered mismatched gender beliefs in the public vs. the private sphere. While attitudes toward premarital cohabitation and premarital sex are liberalizing, norms of female respectability—and the patriarchy at large—have endured (Yeung & Hu, 2016).

Using the empirical case of cohabitation, this article similarly illustrates the tension and ambiguity within the gender and family system of contemporary China: Despite all being highly educated, young, and urban, I find a gender asymmetry in male and female respondents’ perceptions of cohabitation’s risks, benefits, and link to marriage. To the young men in my sample, their perceived benefits of cohabitation have overshadowed any risks, whereas the calculation is reversed for their female counterparts. I further demonstrate that such gender asymmetry is reflective of a gendered tension—between people’s privately-held ideals of individualism and enduring social norms of female marriageability—that women and men differentially confront and negotiate. Highly educated young urban Chinese women continue to face much greater parental censure of cohabitation. As such, despite their own individualistic ideals about self-realization and autonomy, female respondents continue to emphasize a close link between cohabitation and marriage, viewing a sure prospect of marriage as the necessary precondition for cohabitation. In contrast, encountering little parental interference under the prevailing sentiment that “men have nothing to lose,” male respondents regard the desired link between cohabitation and marriage as one-sided: To these young men, while premarital cohabitation is crucial for avoiding a rushed and incompatible marriage, cohabitation neither depends on nor has to result in (the prospect of) marriage.

The findings of this article hold two implications: First, in understanding macro changes in family behavior (including the rise of non-marriage unions), the SDT framework has centered the role of individuals’ ideational shift toward greater individualism, without making much gendered distinction. In recent years, scholars that explicitly highlight the role of gender in studying demographic behavior and attitudes often emphasize the incompatibility between gender (in)equality in public vs. private spheres (e.g., Goldscheider et al., 2015; McDonald, 2000, 2013). As the case of cohabitation in contemporary China illustrates, the tension between people’s privately-held individualistic ideals and entrenched social norms about marriage and family is inherently a gendered one. Such gendered tension thus calls for gendering the SDT framework, as scholars seek to evaluate its applicability beyond the Global North. By gendering the SDT framework, I mean attuning to the social realities, normative expectations, cultural scripts, and embodied experiences that men and women differentially confront and navigate. It is fruitful to consider: Who are the “individuals”? That is, how to make sense of individualism and its significance for demographic changes, especially when theorizing from social contexts in which competing gender norms and uneven changes in family relations are highly salient and observable.

The second implication: The gender asymmetry in highly educated young urban Chinese women’s and men’s assessments of cohabitation—its risks, benefits, and link to marriage—further calls attention to the issue of gendered power, i.e., who has the say at critical moments of union formation and transition. While scholars have documented rising cohabitation in contemporary China, it remains to be further examined how decisions and compromises to cohabit—and not cohabit—are made. To this end, future studies could adopt a dyadic perspective and explore how couples, both cohabiting and non-cohabiting, negotiate the entry into cohabitation and the aftermaths of different outcomes.

I conclude by addressing two additional possibilities for future research—one on cohabitation in contemporary China in particular and another on the SDT framework in general: To start, research from other social contexts has consistently demonstrated that the entry into cohabitation is modulated by multiple axes of social inequality (see e.g., Huang et al., 2011; Manning et al., 2019; Smock, 2000). By design, this article has limited its scope to highly educated urban young adults. Additional studies are needed to further evaluate other dimensions of (a)symmetry and tension, beyond gender, in Chinese individuals’ attitudes and decision-making surrounding cohabitation.

Furthermore, it is crucial to note that the SDT framework has germinated from and been largely deployed in democracies. The Chinese state has for decades constrained individuals’ reproductive behavior (Wang et al., 2013; Zhou, 2021). China’s marriage and family policies continue to privilege heterosexual marriages (Wang, 2020). Moving forward, studies on the SDT framework could further attune to the policy dimension and consider variations by regime types.