UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Continuity and Change in Mainland China’s Recent Marriage History A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology by Dwight Ritchie Davis 2015 © Copyright by Dwight Ritchie Davis 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Continuity and Change in Mainland China’s Recent Marriage History by Dwight Ritchie Davis Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Cameron D. Campbell, Chair The intersection of demographic change and government policy is creating new challenges for mainland Chinese in the marriage market, particularly for men. This has spawned a renewed academic interest in marriage with many studies using current demographic conditions to forecast future marriage levels. These studies forecast a large “marriage squeeze” over the next generation with up to 20 percent of men unable to marry at its peak. Using China census microdata, this dissertation provides historical context for this literature by examining actual 20th century patterns of marriage in mainland China. The empirical results show the relative contribution of marriage market conditions (measured by the unmarried sex ratio) and the propensity to marry (or “force of marriage attraction”) for changing marriage rates. This provides both context and warning for a literature that mostly considers the role of marriage market sex ratios in isolation from likely changes in marriage preferences and patterns of assortative mating. The results indicate the role of marriage market conditions was nuanced over the 1970-2000 period: marriage market conditions may have affected marriage behavior (chapter 5); but they were not responsible for most of the changes in marriage rates across yearly time periods (chapter 4). The results also show that the ii assumption of static female marriage behavior made in recent studies does not fully fit with the recent past. Women (and men) did modify their marriage behavior and those changes were moderately associated with changes in educational attainment (chapter 2) and marriage market conditions (chapter 5). Most men and women eventually married, but marriage rates changed markedly across periods in ways not well explained by age, education, rural-urban status, or marriage market conditions (chapter 4). Other results show continuity with China’s pre-20th century marriage regime in that long-term bachelorhood continued to be patterned by socioeconomic status (chapter 3) and marriage timing for both men and women continued to show indirect evidence of external pressures to marry and to marry at socially normative ages (chapter 2). iii The dissertation of Dwight Ritchie Davis is approved. Jennie Elizabeth Brand Chi-Fun Cindy Fan Patrick Clement Heuveline Cameron D. Campbell, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. x LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1. Mainland China’s Marriage Regime in Context .............................................. 1 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 2. Mainland China’s marriage regime in historical context ............................................ 9 3. Mainland China’s marriage regime in regional context ........................................... 17 4. Primary analytical variables used in the empirical chapters ..................................... 19 Rising educational attainment: a key feature of 20th century China.......................... 19 The household registration (hukou) system: bureaucratic capital and social stratification ........................................................................................................................... 22 5. Literature review: marriage in China ........................................................................ 25 Marriage timing and education .................................................................................. 25 Changing education and patterns of assortative mating ............................................ 28 Marriage market conditions and marriage timing ..................................................... 30 Marriage market projection studies: marriage squeeze in mainland China’s future . 32 6. Data used in the empirical analyses .......................................................................... 36 7. Concluding remarks: the individual, the family, the state, and marriage change ..... 37 Chapter 2. Variation in Age at First Marriage: a Multi-method Analysis ....................... 48 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 48 Hypotheses .................................................................................................................... 53 v Empirical strategy ......................................................................................................... 55 Data ........................................................................................................................... 56 Weighted OLS regression models ............................................................................. 57 Interquartile range quantile regression models ......................................................... 58 Multi-level regression models ................................................................................... 60 Results ........................................................................................................................... 61 Descriptive statistics: interquartile range of first marriage age by birth cohort ........ 61 Weighted OLS regressions: provincial-by-cohort variation in first marriage age .... 62 Interquartile range quantile regressions: individual-level data and variation in first marriage age .......................................................................................................................... 63 Multilevel models: geographic variance and first marriage age ............................... 65 Discussion and conclusion ............................................................................................ 66 Results: figures and tables ............................................................................................ 72 Chapter 3. Determinants of Long-term Bachelorhood: a Birth Cohort Analysis, 1926- 1965............................................................................................................................................... 77 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 77 Empirical Strategy ........................................................................................................ 79 Data ........................................................................................................................... 79 Method ....................................................................................................................... 80 Variable Construction ................................................................................................ 82 Analysis plan ............................................................................................................. 84 Results ........................................................................................................................... 86 vi Does the effect of education differ across birth cohorts by hukou status? ................ 88 Are these differences by education statistically significant across birth cohorts in a model with additional controls? ............................................................................................ 89 Are there differences by hukou status in other variables? ......................................... 91 A more parsimonious model of cohort effects .......................................................... 92 Sensitivity analysis .................................................................................................... 93 Discussion and Conclusion ........................................................................................... 97 Appendix 1: Additional models: men age 40-44 ........................................................ 103 Appendix 2: Provincial variation in bachelorhood ..................................................... 105 Results: figures and tables .......................................................................................... 109 Chapter 4. The Role of Marriage Market Conditions and Propensity to Marry in Changing Marriage Rates, 1970-2000 ....................................................................................... 122 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 122 Empirical strategy ....................................................................................................... 124 Data and analytic sample ......................................................................................... 124 Marriage propensities from marriage