The gender divide in urban China: Singlehood and assortative mating by age and education

Yue Qian and Zhenchao Qian
Additional contact information
Yue Qian: University of British Columbia
Zhenchao Qian: Brown University

Demographic Research, 2014, vol. 31, issue 45, 1337-1364

Abstract: Objective: Chinese media labels highly educated, urban women who are still single in their late 20s as "leftover ladies". We investigate whether indeed highly educated women are less likely to marry than their less-educated counterparts, and how assortative mating patterns by age and education play a role in singleness. Methods: We use data from the urban samples of the Chinese General Social Surveys in the 2000s. In the analysis we calculate marriage rates to examine the likelihood of entry into marriage, and then apply log-linear models to investigate the assortative mating patterns by age and education. Results: We find that as education increases, the likelihood of marriage increases among men but decreases among women, especially among those over age 30. The results from log-linear models reveal that more marriages involve better-educated, older men and less-educated, younger women. Conclusions: We argue that persistent traditional gender roles, accompanied by the rapid rise in women's education, contribute to low marriage rates among older, highly educated women.

Keywords: China; gender; age (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol31/45/31-45.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:demres:v:31:y:2014:i:45

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2014.31.45

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Demographic Research from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Editorial Office ().