The Big Three in Marriage Talk: LLM-Assisted Analysis of Moral Ethics and Sentiment on Weibo and Xiaohongshu

Frank Tian-Fang Ye and Xiaozi Gao
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Frank Tian-Fang Ye: Division of Social Sciences, The HKU SPACE Community College, Hong Kong SAR, PRC
Xiaozi Gao: Department of Early Childhood Education, Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, PRC

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Abstract: China's marriage registrations have declined dramatically, dropping from 13.47 million couples in 2013 to 6.1 million in 2024. Understanding public attitudes toward marriage requires examining not only emotional sentiment but also the moral reasoning underlying these evaluations. This study analyzed 219,358 marriage-related posts from two major Chinese social media platforms (Sina Weibo and Xiaohongshu) using large language model (LLM)-assisted content analysis. Drawing on Shweder's Big Three moral ethics framework, posts were coded for sentiment (positive, negative, neutral) and moral dimensions (Autonomy, Community, Divinity). Results revealed platform differences: Weibo discourse skewed positive, while Xiaohongshu was predominantly neutral. Most posts across both platforms lacked explicit moral framing. However, when moral ethics were invoked, significant associations with sentiment emerged. Posts invoking Autonomy ethics and Community ethics were predominantly negative, whereas Divinity-framed posts tended toward neutral or positive sentiment. These findings suggest that concerns about both personal autonomy constraints and communal obligations drive negative marriage attitudes in contemporary China. The study demonstrates LLMs' utility for scaling qualitative analysis and offers insights for developing culturally informed policies addressing marriage decline in Chinese contexts.

Date: 2025-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-cna and nep-sea
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