Family Endowment,Individual Background,and Age At First Marriage

The change of the age of first marriage and its influencing factors has been an important topic of sociological research.Numerous studies at home and abroad have shown that with the advancement of industrialization and modernization in China,the age of first marriage has shown an overall tendency to be delayed.The delayed age of first marriage in China is influenced by many factors,including individual background,family endowment,and social changes.This study places the age of first marriage in the macro context of social change and aims to answer the following questions: first,how has the age of first marriage changed over time and across generations,whether the age of first marriage varies over time due to the social environment in which it is located at the time,and what are the specific manifestations of this variation? Second,what are the effects of individual’s personal background and family endowment on the age of first marriage,and do these effects vary from period to period?Third,are there any urban-rural differences in the influencing factors of personal background and family endowment?Based on existing theoretical and empirical studies,this study used the survey data from the China Family Tracking Survey(CFPS)2018 to classify individuals into different birth generations based on their birth years,divided into groups born before 1960(early generations),groups born between 1960 and 1979(middle generations),and groups born after1980(late generations),and used stata software,descriptive statistical analysis,one-way ANOVA test and event history analysis were conducted to analyze the variation of age at first marriage and its influencing factors.The specific findings of the study are as follows.First,the age at first marriage showed an overall trend of postponement,but it was not completely linear.Meanwhile,there are gender differences and urban-rural differences in the age of first marriage,and it behaves differently in different periods.Overall,the average age of first marriage is greater for men than for women,and for urban residents than for rural residents.Second,personal background and family endowment have independent effects on the age at first marriage.The higher the education level,the later the age of first marriage.Having parents with high school education or higher delays first marriage,and in terms of family economic capital,children of parents with nonfarm jobs have a higher age of first marriage than children of peasant/unemployed parents.The distribution of family capital is influenced by the number of siblings within the family;the higher the number of siblings,the later the age at first marriage,validating the in resource dilution hypothesis.Then,there are generational differences in the effect of individual background on the age at first marriage.Education level and gender in individual background have significant effects both before and after social transition,and the effect of education level on individual marriage postponement increases over time.Finally,there are generational and rural-urban differences in the effect of family endowment on the age at first marriage.For rural residents,the effect of family endowment on the age at first marriage is statistically insignificant for all birth generations;for urban residents,the effect of family endowment on the age at first marriage is insignificant for early and late birth generations,but significant for middle birth generations,and with modernization,people rely on education to achieve different achievements than family endowment,resulting in Individual differentiation,education has a prominent effect on the age at first marriage of individuals,while family endowment no longer has a significant effect on the age at first marriage.