cai and wang (2011) (re)emergence of late marriage in new shanghai.pdf

7/21/2019 Cai and Wang (2011) (Re)emergence of Late Marriage in New Shanghai.pdf

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Paper Prepared for the Conference on Marriage in Cosmopolitan China, Hong

Kong University, July 4-6, 2011

(Re)emergence ofLate Marriage in New

Shanghai

Yong CAI and WANG Feng

6/20/2011

Please don’t cite or distribute without consulting the authors for the latest version

and for permission



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(Re)emergence of Late Marriage in New Shanghai

Yong CAI, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

[email protected]

WANG Feng, The Brookings Institution and the University of California, Irvine

[email protected]

Abstract

Over a time span of fifty years, young people in Shanghai, China’s largest metropolis, produced two

phases of late marriage, once under the socialist rule in the late 1970s and another during the post

socialist era, in the late 1990s. These two late marriage regimes however were products of vastly

different forces and they inform in important ways of the drastic social changes in urban China in the

last half century. Using data from China’s 2005 Population Sample Survey, this paper documents the

emergence and the reemergence of late marriage in Shanghai, and discusses the underlying forces

driving these two phases as well as their social and political implications.

mailto:[email protected]








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(Re)emergence of Late Marriage in New Shanghai

1.

Introduction: Marriage and Social Transformation in Urban China

In the last half century, two phases of late marriage emerged in urban Shanghai, China’s largest and

most cosmopolitan urban center. Mean age at first marriage first rose from 20 for females and 22 for

males in the early 1950s to 25 for females and 27 for males by the late 1970s, the highest among any

Chinese cities. Yet, mean marriage age dropped precipitously after 1980, by two years both for females

and males, only to be followed by a gradual rise again, approaching the level of the previous peaks by

the early 21st century. In urban Shanghai, as elsewhere in China, a late marriage regime has reemerged.

The forces underlying these two late marriage periods however are vastly different. The first late

marriage era, while initially rooted in individual choices and preferences, was a product of forced

collective synchronization, under the socialist government’s late marriage campaign as part of a forceful

birth control program. When such a requirement was withdrawn, as was the case in 1980, individuals

reacted and readjusted their behaviors, which led to a sudden and significant drop in marriage age

within a short time period. The second late marriage era, which emerged gradually over two decades

since the early 1980s and is continuing today, has brought mean marriage ages back to the level of the

previous peaks, especially for males. Unlike the first phase of late marriage, this reemergence of late

marriage is no longer the product of government policy enforcement, but due entirely to individual

volition and choices, conditioned by a post-socialist society that has commodified everything from

property to the human body. The reemergence of the late marriage regime in Shanghai, following a rise

and then a drop in marriage age during the previous decades, tells a vivid story of the social

transformation in China, seen from one of the most long-lasting and important social institutions.

In contrast to historical European societies where marriage and mate choice were based on individual

preferences (Schofield 1985, Macfarlane 1986), marriage until recently in Chinese history had long been

outside the confines of individual decision and preferences. Romantic stories featuring individual love

ending both in happiness but more often in tragedies are not few, but they mostly existed in novels and

plays as stories if not fantasies. In everyday life and for most people, marriage was not based on

romantic love and individual choice, but under the authority of the collective, for the purpose of

continuing the family lineage line and for building economic, social and political alliances (Yang, 1957;Lee, Wang, and Ruan 2001). Marriages were arranged by the elders, either parents or other kin. While a

significant proportion of poor men remained bachelors throughout their lives, virtually no women were

unmarried by the age of 20 (Wolf and Huang 1980, Lee and Wang 1999). Early and universal female

marriage was therefore a defining feature of the Chinese society that had not only demographic

importance but also far reaching social and economic implications (Malthus 1798; Hajnal 1953, 1982;

Lee and Wang 1999).



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Suppression of individual desires and decision in marriage formed a major source of social discontent

among the young, and China’s marriage and family traditions were consequently among the main

targets of Chinese social revolutions in the last century. Chinese revolutionaries, especially the

communists, took reforming marriage practices as a high priority in their search for modernity. Foot-

binding, arranged marriage, gender inequality and many other “old” family institutions were deemed

obstacles of China’s rejuvenation thus must be smashed. Women’s emancipation, freedom of marriage,

and liberation from patriarchal control were among the important tenets of the May 4 th movement in

1919. The Nationalist government, with its bourgeois support and western connection, promoted

women’s new role through its New Life Movement, especially in urban parts of China from the mid-

1930s to the end of the 1940s. At the same time, more forceful social reforms that embraced gender

equality were carried out in the mountainous areas under communist control.

It was not until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 that the traditional marriage

system and women’s role inside the Chinese family were under a wholesale onslaught. A new marriage

law was among the first acts of the communist regime. The first (and only in the first 30 years) legalistic

action of the communist regime, the Marriage Law was enacted on April 13, 1950, only months after the

founding of the People’s Republic. The law prohibited arranged and forced marriage, and promoted

gender equality. It abolished polygamy, concubinage, and “little daughter-in-law” marriage in which girls

were adopted by their future husbands’ families at a very early age and raised to be daughters-in-law.

The law stipulated that marriage should be a free decision between an adult male and an adult female.

According to the law, there should be no interference from any third person, and no one should seek

economic benefits from marriage. The law also provided venues and protections for divorce and

remarriage. However, even with lofty ideas and sometimes drastic actions, changes on the ground was

probably more gradual and evolutional than revolutionary. The law was extremely vague on punishment

on violation and noncompliance. In addition, although divorce was a protected legal option for marriage

exit (some even referred the Marriage Law as the divorce law), the social pressure and cultural prejudice

kept divorce at a very low rate until recently.1 The implementation of the law instead relied mostly on

social mobilization, mass campaign, education and persuasion.

In overthrowing the old marriage regime, the communist government took away the power of marriage

arrangement from the Chinese family but did not return that power fully to individuals (Croll 1981).

Whereas a decisively historical transformation did take place, for marriages to move from parental

decision to individual choice (Whyte 1990, 1993, Davis and Harrell 1993), the Chinese state kept an

1 There was an early spike of divorce in association with the new marriage law and mainly as a result of ending the

arranged marriages occurred earlier. “据松江、热河、陕西、甘肃、宁夏、福建、山东、浙江、河南、湖北、

湖南、江西、广东、广西、贵州、云南、西康、河北、山西、平原、察哈尔（已改建制）、绥远、江苏、

皖南、川南等二十三省二行署及沈阳、旅大、鞍山、本溪、南京、武汉、广州、西安、重庆、北京、天津

等十一市的不完全统计：自一九五○年五月婚姻法颁布起至一九五二年六月底止，共办理结婚登记五三六、

九五四对，离婚登记三三二、三八四件，寡妇改嫁的二三、五六七人，取消婚约（包括童养媳）三二、九

二五人。”



4

active role, both in encouraging individual choice for choosing a partner and later on, in dictating the

time of marriages. The social motivation of the new Marriage Law makes this state takeover fits well

with Foucault’s (1998) biopower, in which the state exerts control over individuals under the name of

promoting better life. Moreover, the political structure of China and its socialist economic settings made

it easier for Chinese government to directly inject itself in people’s daily life.

In the 1970s, the “wan” (late marriage), “ xi ” (longer birth interval), “shao” (fewer births) campaign

aimed at slowing down China’s rapid population growth was among the most blatant government

interventions in individual marriage of any modern societies. In a decade time, mean age at first

marriage rose by more than two years, creating the first phase of China’s late marriage (Coale 1989,

Wang and Tuma 1993). Such a forceful policy interfering individual marriage not only ran counter to the

communist’s early promises of individual freedom but also invited fierce resistance and complaints. It

was therefore a glaring contradiction in demographic terms that while China stepped up its birth control

efforts in the late 1970s culminating in the announcement of the one child policy, it at the same time

also removed the requirement of late marriage age, both in the same year, 1980, resulting in a short-

lived baby boom and literally cancelling out the initial birth control impact of the one child policy (Coale

1989, Feeney et al. 1989).

With government intervention leaving the scene, marriage choices have once again been returned to

individuals and their families. Over the two decades following the removal of the government stringent

requirement on marriage age in 1980, a new era of late marriage among Chinese young people ushered

in. Such a return is seen for China as a whole, but most prominent in urban China, in cities such as

Shanghai. Unlike the previous late marriage era, when the government was a major actor, the recent

late marriage phase reflects more of individual choices and preferences, and therefore informs us moreof the quiet yet profound social changes occurring in China.

In the remainder of this paper, we use urban Shanghai as an example to examine the reemergence of

the late marriage in contemporary China. We will first introduce the setting and the data we use in this

study, followed by two analytic sections, first an analysis and a comparison of the two phases of late

marriage, and second an analysis of the individual variations underlying the reemergence of the late

marriage, aimed at understanding how this phase of late marriage has taken place. We end the paper

with a brief discussion and conclusion.

2. Setting and Data Source

The rise of Shanghai epitomizes economic and social transformations in China over the last two

centuries. Shanghai was one of the original five ports opened to western commerce under the Treaty of

Nanjing of 1842. Those treaty ports quickly became offshoots of Western culture, and cradles of China’s



5

modernization. At the beginning of the 20th century, Shanghai had grown to be the economic and

industrial center of China. The economic reform reopened Shanghai to the world, and Shanghai is now

one of the economic and financial centers of the world. Today, Shanghai is the largest city in China, the

most recent census counts its population over 23 million.

Shanghai is also the pioneer of China’s social development. China’s population control efforts, as well as

a push for late marriage were first implemented in Shanghai. Shanghai started advocating for population

control and late marriage in 1958 (Guo 1996). Shortly after the ending of the Great Leap Forward famine,

Shanghai put full force into population control. In December 1963, Shanghai announced its operational

definition of “late marriage”: for urban couples, around 25 for females and around 30 for males; 2 for

rural couples, 23 for females and around 25 for males.3 On surface, late marriage was only advocated as

“advanced behavior.” Those who followed government’s call to delay their marriages by meeting the

late marriage age criterion were rewarded with financial and social welfare benefits. In reality, the “late

marriage age criterion” was often implemented as a compulsory rule.4 Those who did not answer to the

call were often denied their application for marriage registration. They also faced enormous pressure at

the workplace and within the residential committee. In fact, because city government had tight control

of people’s survival, such as job assignment and housing provision, compliance could be relatively easily

enforced. Shanghai’s approach of using late marriage in combination with longer birth interval and

fewer children were adopted as a national policy in the 1970s. Most provinces adopted similar but lower

age requirement for late marriage, most 23 for females and 25 for males5

The revision of the Marriage Law in 1980, which raised the legal minimum marriage ages by 2 years to

20 for females and 22 for males, and tightened up the interpretation of marriage age from “traditional

year” counting to “full year” counting

6

, signaled a major change in China’s approaches in regulatingpopulation and governing the society. Since the adoption of “late marriage” as a mean of population

control in Shanghai in the 1960s and at the national level in the 1970s, the de facto minimum marriage

ages, often specified in local regulations or decrees, were several years higher than the minimum legal

marriage ages stipulated in the Marriage Law of 1950. While there was nevertheless a drastic increase in

marriage age, the resistance to such a push was strong, and the compliance was far from perfect.

2 Age requirement for first birth was set at 26.

3 1978年 8月，上海市革命委员会颁布《关于推行计划生育的若干规定》，规定晚婚年龄：农村，男性25

周岁，女性 23周岁；城市，男性 27周岁，女性 25周岁。

4 1971年，上海市贯彻国务院批转的《关于做好计划生育工作的报告》精神，要求男女晚婚、晚育。 5 1974年 12月，中共中央转发《关于上海开展计划生育和提倡晚婚工作的情况报告》，明确“晚、稀、少”

具体要求：晚，推迟结婚年龄，提倡男性 25 周岁，女性 23 周岁；稀，拉开生育二胎间隔 4 年；少，最多

二个孩子。 6 China’s traditional age counting starts with age 1 at birth, and increases one year at each Chinese New Year. By

the traditional calendar, when someone turns age 18, she or he could be only 17 or 16 in full year. On June 26,

1950, Chinese government published a memo titled “Few Issues in the Implementation of the Marriage Law.” In

responding to the question on how marriage age should be calculated, the answer states that “age could be

calculated as full-year or could be calculated according to traditional counting.”



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Raising the de jure minimum marriage ages to lower than the de facto level was, on the one hand, a

continued recognition of the importance of “late marriage” in fertility control, but on the other hand, it

was also an acknowledgment of the challenges in implementing an unpopular policy that interfered with

one of the most basic decisions of individual lives. The revision therefore reflected a shift in the

governance philosophy of the Chinese government at the time, namely to return some freedom to the

population in the spirit of building a freer society based on voluntary participation, and to follow the rule

of law rather than administrative fiats (Banister 1987). Both changes in association with the new

marriage law were consistent with many other economic and social reform policies that helped

revitalize and rejuvenate a society that was still leaving behind the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.

The revision of Marriage Law in 1980 did not mean that the Chinese government abandoned its efforts

to use late marriage as a method for population control. The enforcement of “late marriage” continued

and was incorporated and formalized in local birth control regulations. According to Shanghai’s Birth

Planning Regulations of 1981, late marriage ages were still set at 5 years above the legal minimums. In

1990, Shanghai further lowered its late marriage ages to 3 years above the legal minimums. Accordingto the 1990 revision of Shanghai’s Birth Planning Regulation, couples meet “late marriage age” criteria

could have one week of vacation time for their honeymoon and more time for paternal leaves.7

While there were no major changes in its regulations on marriage since the publication of Birth Planning

Regulations in 1990, Shanghai has experienced drastic changes in almost every aspects of individual life.

Shanghai is now leading China in the level of economic prosperity. In 1990, Shanghai’s GDP per capita

was just over $1,000; by 2010, it had reached $10,000. It is also leading China in demographic

transformation. Shanghai now has China’s lowest fertility and mortality, with a total fertility lower than

1.0 and life expectancy higher than 80 years. Yet, the population size of Shanghai has expanded from 13

million to 23 million in just two decades. The vast majority of the population increase was due to a floodof migrants from other parts of China. By the early twenty-first century, over a quarter of Shanghai’s

population were migrants from elsewhere in China, every two out of five workers are migrants, a third

of all marriages involved a non-native partner. Among babies delivered in Shanghai in 2007, over 40

percent were from parents who were not native Shanghainese (Ruan 2009). Shanghai in other words is

now a new Shanghai.

7 1981 年 8 月，市政府颁布《推行计划生育的若干规定》，规定初婚年龄，市区男性 27 周岁以上，女性

25 周岁以上，郊县（包括集镇）男性 25 周岁以上，女性 23 周岁以上的，可增加婚假。市区妇女年满 25

周岁，郊县妇女满 23 周岁以后生育的初产妇（包括再婚夫妇没有孩子的初产妇），可增加产假 15 天，产假期间工资照发，工分照记。1984 年 10 月，中共上海市委、市政府批转市计划生育委员会《关于计划生

育工作情况和今后意见的报告》，报告指出“今后仍继续提倡晚婚，严禁未到法定年龄的早婚”。1987 年

4 月，市政府办公厅在转发市计划生育委员会《关于贯彻全国计划生育工作会议意见的请示》附件《关于

“七五”到 2000 年上海人口自然增长规划及完善生育政策的方案》中指出，“提倡的晚婚晚育年龄改为与

全国一致，即：男性 25 周岁，女性 23 周岁；晚育年龄为 24 周岁；鼓励晚婚、晚育的待遇不变。”1990

年 3 月，上海市第九届人民代表大会常务委员会第十六次会议审议通过《上海市计划生育条例》，其中规

定：男年满 25 周岁，女年满 23 周岁为晚婚；女年满 24周岁的初育为晚育。符合晚育年龄的夫妇，妻子生

育，单位给男方假期 3天。



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To understand changes in marriage in Shanghai today, we use data from China’s Inter-census Survey of

2005 collected by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (Zhang et al. 2005). In China, a full

population census takes place every ten years at years ending with a 0, and an inter-census population

survey, also referred as 1% population sample survey or mini-census, takes place at years ending with a

5. A mini-census is very similar to a full census except for its probabilistic design. The mini-census uses

Probability Proportionate to Estimated Size (PPES) sampling method to ensure representation at the

provincial level, with resident groups in rural area and neighborhood committees in urban area as

primary sampling units (called enumeration districts). Target population are all current residents in the

selected enumeration districts, with or without a local household registration, and include those who

maintain local household registration but were away at the time of enumeration. The survey

questionnaire is very similar to the census questionnaires of 2000 and 2010 with 35 items at the

individual level, and 20 items at the household level. The data used in this analysis is a 15% sub-sample

of the mini-census for Shanghai.

We use data from the 2005 mini-census to examine changes in marriage age since 1950. The survey notonly contains information on the current marital status, but also year and month of the first marriage.

Computer algorithm is used to match marriage partners within a household according to their

relationship with the household head, for generating data needed for spousal information. Because

marriage might have a selective effect on or through mortality, for example, people in urban areas tend

to marry later and live longer than people in rural areas, age at marriage for early years calculated from

the survey might present some bias.8 However, data examination indicates such a bias is minimal in

Shanghai and does not change the trend of marriage changes as we shall describe below.9

3. From Collective Synchronization and Individual Liberalization

Two phases of late marriage age are clearly evident among the population in Shanghai. In Figure 1, we

present changes of male and female ages at first marriage in two separate panels, one for males and

one for females. Four summary statistics are selected to present both the central tendency and

variability in changes of marriage age at first marriage. Age at first marriage has been on the rise since

1950, with trends basically parallel for males and females, and females’ mean age at first marriage about

2 years younger than males’. The revision of Marriage Law in 1980 divides the rise of age at first

marriage in Shanghai from 1950 to 2005 into three stages: pre-1980, 1980-1990, and post-1990.

8 If marriage has a negative effect on mortality, a retrospective survey would over-estimate average marriage age

for older generations if mortality is not controlled for, and vice versa.9 At the national level, comparing to female mean age of marriage estimated from the 1988 Fertility Survey,

estimates based on the 2005 mini-census at national level is about 0.5-1.0 year higher for women married

between 1940 and 1970, but the effect is just the opposite, but smaller for men. The exact reasons for such a gap

and for gender difference require further investigation, but one main suspect is the large rural/urban gap in

mortality and marriage in China. No major difference is found for Shanghai, for both male and female.



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Figure 1. The Rise of First Age at Marriage, Shanghai 1950-200510

During the first phase of rising marriage age, between 1950 and 1980, the trend was almost linear:

average age at first marriage rose for about 5 years in these three decades. Unlike what has been

observed previously at the national level that there was a sudden acceleration in the increase of mean

age at marriage in the 1970s (e.g. Coale 1989; Wand and Yang 1996), as a direct result of the “later,

longer, fewer” policy, the increase in marriage age in Shanghai appears to be steady and continuous

with only minor interruptions (e.g. the Great Leap Forward). The overall increase was similar for males

and females, but the pace was faster in 1950s for males. Between 1950 and 1960, mean age at first

marriage rose almost 3 years for males, from 21.9 to 24.8. At the same time, the mean age at first

marriage for females only rose by 2 years, from 20.3 to 22.3. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, the

increase of mean age at first marriage was faster for females than males, reflecting in part the drive

behind this push for late marriage, which was to reduce fertility. The average age at first marriagereached 26.2 in 1970 and then 27.0 in 1980 for males, and 23.3 in 1970 and 25.1 in 1980 for females.

The swift rise in at first marriage was reversed by the revision of Marriage Law in 1980. The reversal was

just as speedy as the rise: by 1990, mean age at first marriage had dropped to 25.3 for male and 23.3 for

female, nearly two years each for males and females respectively.

10 Source: Calculated using data from the 2005 1% Population Change Survey.



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With no obvious policy connection, mean ages at first marriage resumed its rise in the early 1990s,

presumably a result of socioeconomic change and cultural change. From 1990 to 2005, it increased from

25.3 to 26.5 for male and 23.3 to 24.1 for female, close to the level reached in the late 1970s and

producing the second phase of late marriage age among individuals in Shanghai.

The trends depicted by median ages at first marriage for both sexes match closely with those of mean

ages at first marriage, with the exception of a divergence after the decline in the 1980s. Age at marriage

typically has a positively skewed distribution with more people marrying at older ages than younger

ages, thus a higher mean value than the median. The late marriage push that imposed forced

synchronization on marriage age in Shanghai made marriage age distributions more symmetric than

normally expected. Only when government loosened its control of marriage age, did we see the

reemergence of a positively skewed marriage age distribution, especially on the male side.

The more interesting story of marriage age change in Shanghai is not in the rise-fall-rise of the mean

ages, but in how such trends are formed by individual behaviors, which are seen in the measures ofvariations. One set of such variation measures are the 95 and 5 percentiles, meaning ages at which the

latest five percent (95 percentile) and the earliest five percent (5 percentile) of individuals married. The

95 percentile trends in Figure 2 are parallel to the mean and median trends for the most part, until the

mid-1980s, when the liberalization of marriage age control took place. For males, the 95 percentile

continued its rise, only to stabilize around 35 years around 2000; for females, the liberalization spurred a

small decline, but then the trend reversed and settled at around 30 years. Unlike the mean and median

trends, whose values from recent years are approaching but have yet to reach the historical highs of

early 1980s, the top percentile, represented by very late marriages, has surpassed its historical highs. In

other words, more people began to marry at ages substantially higher than what is suggested by the

means or medians.

Similarly, the 5 percentile trends in Figure 2 are parallel to the mean and median trends, but tell the

story on the low end of marriage age. It suggests that underage marriage was indeed widespread in

China. Even in Shanghai, where its social and cultural surrounding makes its population more susceptive

to the idea of late marriage and where the government has a more effective control over its population,

there were still a non-miniscule proportion of people marrying before reaching legally minimum age.11

However, the relaxation of marriage age control in 1980s had a smaller effect on the 5 percentile than

on both the mean and median. The stabilization of the 5 percentile after 1990 suggests that there is

likely a culturally defined low end of age at marriage.

11 Because this study is based on a retrospective survey, we cannot separate marriages happened in Shanghai and

marriages took place somewhere (before people moved to Shanghai).



10

Figure 2. Mean and Standard Deviation of Age at First Marriage, Shanghai 1950-200512

One main difference between the recent and previous rise of marriage age is that the recent rise

happened at the same time when the age range of marriage also expanded. This second phase of late

marriage age is thus in clear contrast to the earlier one, when marriage age range stayed the same or

even shrunk. Such a contrast indicates that the rise of marriage age between 1950 and 1980 was a result

of forceful government policy that effectively synchronized people’s marriage age, but the recent one

was a product of increased individualization and liberalization, ushering in an era of late marriage that is

based more on individual volition and choice.

The shift from collective synchronization to individual differentiation is seen most clearly with another

measure of variability, namely the standard deviation of ages at first marriage. As shown in Figure 3,

parallel to the rise of marriage age up until the late 1970s is a sharp decline in the variability of marriage

age (right figure). The variability declined from 3.5 years to below 2.5 years in around 1980, before areversal starting in 1980, most likely due to the loosening of marriage age control and the start of

individual liberalization in marriage timing. By the late 1990s, the standard deviation has returned to the

pre-“late marriage” era. With the Marriage Law set the minimum marriage ages, the source of variability

in age at first marriage over time is in the upper end of marriage age, i.e. what are the proportions of

12 Source: Calculated using data from the 2005 1% Population Change Survey. Dotted/Dashed are fitted median-

spline trend lines.



11

people marring at old ages. In the 1960s, there was an increase of proportion of women marring in the

late 20s, but the proportion declined in the 1970s. Starting in the 1980s, the upper end of age at first

marriage for females settled at about 30, and for males about 35 (as shown in the right panel Figure 2).

The launch of the “late marriage” policy first greatly increased the variability of age at first marriage in

early 1960s, especially for females. The unnatural increase in mean ages was then associated with a

decline in variability. The liberalization of marriage age control has reestablished the traditional age

variability by 1990, and since then, marriage age for males in Shanghai has shown further variability, a

result of a greater degree of individual differentiation.

Figure 3. Age Difference within First Married Couple by Marriage Year, Shanghai 1950-200513

Similar collective synchronization followed by individual liberalization can also be observed in the age

difference within a couple (Figure 3). While the new Marriage Law of 1950 broke many traditions of the

Chinese marriage system, it nevertheless created a new type of female age hypergamy, by stipulating atwo-year age difference between male and female minimum age at marriage. The institutionalization of

age hypergamy and the push for late age made it extremely difficult for a female to marry a younger

husband because she would have to wait several extra years for her groom to reach legal/de facto

minimum age at marriage. Such an effect can be seen in Figure 3: the proportion of female marrying a

13 Source: Calculated using data from the 2005 1% Population Change Survey. Only first married couples (both

sides) are included in the calculation.



12

younger husband plunged in the 1950s, and then stabilized at about 20%14. It can be argued that this is a

result of institutionalized hypergamy.

The forced synchronization of marriage age up to the 1980s not only stabilized a two-year norm of the

age difference between males and females, it also drastically reduced the variation among couples in

their age difference. As shown in the right panel of Figure 3, by the late 1970s, the variability measureof the age difference between spouses reached its lowest point. Concurrent with the emergence of the

late marriage age in the 1990s, age difference between spouses also increased drastically. In contrast to

the high variability during the period leading to the first late marriage era, prior to 1970, when the

variability in spouse age difference is driven in part by older wives than husbands (as shown in the left

panel of Figure 3), the latest rise in spousal age difference is driven by more older men marrying

younger wives, an important feature of the recent individualization.

The rise of age at first marriage in Shanghai since 1950 shows both the cultural resilience and cultural

change in the Chinese marriage regime. Dramatic, sometimes chaotic social, economic, and political

changes in China since the founding of the People’s Republic have had direct impacts on China’s

marriage system. The changes in the marriage system however seem to be more an evolutionary than

revolutionary process. Even the forceful push of “late marriage” by government fiat only had a

temporary effect. Looking from a long-term perspective, age at first marriage in urban Shanghai was on

a course of steady and gradual rise. The underlying forces driving such a long-term trend, as we

document above, varied by historical time and institutional conditions.

4. Changing Patterns of Individual Behavior

Having delineated the two phases of late marriage in urban Shanghai and identified that a definingfeature of the reemergence is increasing individualization, our next questions are 1) what the effects of

such delayed marriage have on the marriage institution itself, namely whether the delay is also

associated with staying out of the marriage institution all at once, and 2) how such an increased

individualization plays out, namely who are the ones marrying the latest, if at all.

The connection between late marriage and the rising marriage age is obvious, but the delay may not

affect the other defining feature (along with early marriage) of the traditional Chinese marriage system,

namely universality of marriage. Even with delay, everyone still gets married, just at a later age. This is

largely true if we look at the current marital status by age in Shanghai (Table 1). In 2005, by age 35-39,

only 6 percent of males and 2 percent of females stay never married. By 40-44, virtually all women are

married, while only about 5% of men remain unmarried. The relatively high proportion of never married

men is also due to sexual imbalance rather than individual choice.

14 Trend analysis suggests that there is a modest trend of increasing from 1960s and on.



13

Table 1. Current Marital Status by Age, Shanghai 200515

Percentage

Sex Age Group N

Never

Married

First

Marriage Remarried Divorced Widowed

Male 25-29 3,437 38.6 60.8 0.2 0.4 0.0

30-34 3,393 12.0 85.6 0.7 1.7 0.1

35-39 3,258 6.1 89.8 1.9 2.1 0.1

40-44 3,490 5.4 87.9 2.8 3.8 0.2

Total 13,578 15.6 80.9 1.4 2.0 0.1

Female 25-29 3,597 23.6 75.3 0.5 0.6 0.1

30-34 3,328 5.7 91.0 1.5 1.7 0.1

35-39 3,071 2.0 91.6 3.3 2.8 0.3

40-44 3,262 0.8 91.1 3.7 3.7 0.8

Total 13,258 8.5 86.9 2.2 2.2 0.3

Under the general picture of universal marriage, however, there is a social gradation of marriage in

relation to other socioeconomic indicators. Figure 4 presents the connection between education and

marital status. For age group 25-34, the proportion of never married rises gradually with educational

attainment. For age 35-44, the association between education and proportion of never married persists

though with a much higher proportion of ever married, suggesting at least some highly educated

women may choose to forgo marriage all together. Another interesting phenomenon is that divorce and

remarriage proportions are higher for those with a middle school or high school education.

15 Source: Calculated using data from the 2005 1% Population Change Survey.



14

Figure 4. Marital Status by Age and Education, Shanghai 200516

The change from a forced collective synchronization of marriage timing in the 1970s to the reemergence

of individual choices can be seen in the comparison of cumulative risk of marriage between the decadesof 1971-1980 and of 1996-2005 (Figure 5). In 1971-1980, the main difference is between those with

lowest level of education as one group and all others as another group. The differential effect of

education is shown primary as a delaying effect. Individuals with only a primary school education

married at much younger age, and at a much faster pace. But by age 35, individuals with higher levels of

education made up their lost time and reached a level of marriage similar to those with only a primary

school education. The effect is very similar for males and females.

In the decade of 1996-2005, the differential effect of education on marriage had become much more

evident and widespread, with marriage timing clearly differentiated by the level of educational

attainment. Large gaps are seen between those with lower than middle school education and those withhigh school education, and between those with high school education and those with college degrees

and above. There is also another important change that suggests the weakening of universal marriage

for females: unlike what shown in the decade of 1971-1980, when females regardless of educational

16 Source: Calculated using data from the 2005 1% Population Change Survey. The “Primary School” category

includes those with no education. The “University” category includes those with professional and graduate school

degrees.

0

2 0

4 0

6 0

8 0

1 0 0

Pr imary Sch oo l Middle Sch oo l High Sc ho ol Co lleg e Unive rs it y

Age 25-34

Never Married First Marriage

0

2 0

4 0

6 0

8 0

1 0 0

Pr imary Sch oo l Middle Sch oo l High Sc ho ol Co lleg e Un ive rs it y

Age 35-44

Remarried Divorced Widowed



15

attainment eventually converge to universal marriage, the trend shown in the 1996-2005 decade reveals

that, for women with the highest levels of education, almost 7 percent of them would remain single at

the age of 45 if the risk of marriage stay at the level of 1996-2005. The differential effect of education on

marriage is more than a mere delay, either long delay led to missed opportunities, or some highly

educated women made a deliberate choice to stay single.

Figure 5. Kaplan-Meier Estimates of Cumulative Risk of Getting Married

Based on Empirical Data of 1971-1980 and 1996-2005, Shanghai17

The male side of the story for 1996-2005 decade is equally interesting. Given an imbalanced sex ratio

both historically and again in recent times (Coale and Banister 1994, Cai and Lavely 2007), and the

strong emphasis in Chinese culture on continuing the patriarchal family lineage, many have argued that

marriage is a symbol of social success and status (Lee and Wang 1998, Wang and Tuma 1996). There arehowever several interesting crossovers in marriage risks among men with different education levels.

While individuals with a primary school education start to marry at earlier ages and at a faster pace than

other groups, they are surpassed by those with a middle school education at around age 28. In fact, for

17 Source: Calculated using data from the 2005 1% Population Change Survey . The “Primary School” category

includes those with no education. The “University” category includes those with professional and graduate school

degrees.



16

those with the lowest level of education, if they did not get married before age 30, their chance of

marriage is significantly diminished. At the same time, people with higher levels education, though with

a late start, move quickly to catch up. By age 35, the cumulative risk of getting married across three level

of education—middle school, college, and university are very similar to each other. However, there are

more “late marriages” among those with university level education, they would eventually move above

everyone else to have the highest proportion of ever marriage by age 45.

The divergence in marriage pattern between males and females among those with the highest levels of

education (college and university degrees) confirms our early observation that the reemergence of late

marriage in Shanghai is a result of individual choice within a strong cultural context of hypergamy. For

women, it is their choice of choosing not to marry, or at least not to compromise to make up their

missed opportunities in their 20s and 30s; for men, their status advantage is vividly in display as their

opportunity for marriage stays at a high level all the way to their 40s.

5. Conclusion

In a long time span of half of a century, the institution of marriage, a traditional social pillar of the

Chinese society, has witnessed profound changes. Behind such changes are both the force of the state

and social changes as embodied in changing family relationships and individual values and choices. In

Shanghai, and likely in China as a whole, 50 years of state engineered social development has greatly

weakened the traditional preference of early marriage. The first socialist marriage law of the 1950

liberated individuals from the rules of their family elders and led to a gradual increase in age at marriage,

but did not weaken the marriage institution itself. State’s enforcement of late marriage in the 1970s

pushed age at marriage to a historical high, erasing individual differences and creating a collective

synchronization. When such a strong intervention was withdrawn, marriage age first fell, followed by a

gradual and still ongoing rise. By the end of this half-century, a second height of marriage age emerged,

as seen in urban Shanghai. Unlike the previous peak of age at marriage, the recent one is featured by

increased individual choice and differentiation. And unlike the previous late marriage era, which

retrenched quickly when the state intervention was withdrawn, the current one carries its own

momentum and has no end in sight.

What has also emerged in association with the reemergence of late marriage in recent years is a move

away from the traditional model of universal marriage. Such a trend resembles what has taken place in

societies elsewhere, including those in East Asia, and departs from the patterns seen only two decades

ago in urban China, where marriage age delay was associated with a “stalled wall,” namely eventuallyalmost all young people still got married (Whyte 1993). At least for the highly educated women in

Shanghai, almost 7 percent will remain single at age 45 if the marriage trend observed in the decade of

1996-2005 continues. With the rapid expansion of China’s high education, especially women’s education,

if this trend of non-marriage continues, China will soon face a marriage revolution just like what has

happened in many developed countries.



17

The reemergence of late marriage in Shanghai takes place in the broad context of rapid socioeconomic

changes, among them liberalization, marketization, and globalization. Romantic relationship and self-

fulfillment have replaced family obligation and continuing lineage as the dominant tenets behind the

marriage binding young men and women. At the same time, life pressure in a highly competitive

environment that puts a price tag on virtually everything has turned mate choice and marriage decision

a rational calculation weighing costs and benefits. Although we were not able to perform a full-length

analysis of the connection between socioeconomic factors and marriage decisions, our analysis

demonstrates that there is a very strong relationship between education and marriage. Education has

direct effects on age trajectories of marriage likelihood; it also influences the relative position of men

and women in the marriage market.

Rising age at marriage is just one aspect of multi-facets change in China’s marriage institution. Rising

pre-marital sex, cohabitation, divorce, extra-marital sex all pose challenges to a society that for

thousand years functioned on a relatively stable patrilineal, patrilocal and patriarchal family-marriage

system. Further analysis should not only look into marriage as outcomes, but also as agents of social

change, as changes in marriage have profound effects on many other aspects of the Chinese society.



18

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