The Study On Marriage Squeeze In China

The population problem is one of the basic problems that influence the progress ofthe society. The sex structure is an important part of the population problem and has greateffects on social issues including marriage and family. The sex ratio at birth has begun toremain higher than the normal range since the1980s. Whether the sex structure of themarriage market has lost balance is a very important problem of reality and theory.This article is based on The Sixth National Population Census Data and some otherdata. By the statistical analysis of demographic sociology, the author researches on themarriage squeeze problem of China that includes the current situation, consequences,causes and prediction. The results of the study indicate that the male marriage squeeze ismuch serious in the marriage market of China. The level of marriage squeeze is higher incountry than in cities and towns. The marriage squeeze is more serious for people of lowereducation background than people of higher education background. The bachelor problemis very serious in the rural areas because of marriage squeeze, and sixty percent ofbachelors and more than seventy percent of lifelong unmarried population centralize in thecountry. The number of rural bachelors is more than11.96million, which leads to manysocial problems. The reasons of marriage squeeze include the following points: the sexration at birth has been too high in the last thirty years; the birth rate has decreased rapidlysince the1970s; the mortality has gender differences; the population mobility andmarriage gap have mutual effects. The author predicts that the marriage squeeze willbecome more and more serious in the following twenty years. The proportion of surplusmen in the marriage market and first marriage market will reach ten percent and fifteenpercent in2030.Nowadays, the stratification in the marriage market becomes more serious resultingfrom economical and social stratification. The underclass of the society has to pay moreprices for the marriage squeeze. The more serious marriage squeeze in the followingtwenty years is mainly caused by the exorbitant sex ration at birth, so the most importantmeasure to reduce the level of marriage squeeze is the drop of the sex ration at birth. Thebachelor problem will become more serious in the less developed rural areas. It’snecessary to pay more attention to the large bachelor group. What’s more, the author putsforward some advice for easing the problem of marriage squeeze: changing the current marriage age model, reforming the one-child policy, reducing the female mortality, and soon.