More than 40% of the 119 villages where older men and young people have difficulty getting married, village cadres try to help them "find wives"
A professor’s observation of “leftover men” in rural areas
As the Spring Festival approaches, “it is difficult for older rural men to choose a spouse” has once again become a prominent topic.
At the end of January 2024, Professor Huang Zhenhua’s research team from the China Rural Research Institute at Central China Normal University released a survey report on the “Marriage Status of Older Young Men in Rural Areas.” This report based on 26 provinces (cities, districts), 119 villages, and 1,785 rural households across the country pointed out that more than 40% of villages have serious problems in mating older men and young people. In a short period of time, the entry “Solutions to the Marriage Problems of Rural Young People” became a hot search topic on Weibo.
The popularity of being out of the circle surprised Huang Zhenhua. He speculated: "Firstly, it may be that it coincides with the Spring Festival, which happens to be the peak period for young men and women to return to their hometowns for blind dates; secondly, it also shows that the report truly reflects the current common situation."
The China Rural Research Institute, where Huang Zhenhua works, has been engaged in research on rural farmers' issues for many years. Since the 1980s, it has continued to carry out field surveys on different themes in rural areas across the country. According to his observations, in the past 10 years, rural young men have indeed experienced difficulty in getting married, and the trend has been getting worse year by year.
Huang Zhenhua believes that this is not a matter of two people, but a social problem, and its situation is much more complicated than people imagine. This includes not only the well-known phenomenon of "sky-high price betrothal gifts", but also the change in the traditional views on marriage and love among young rural men due to the gap between ideals and reality, and "their recognition of marriage has become lower." The hidden worries that this brings to rural social governance are also another side that needs to be seen.
In Huang Zhenhua's view, measures such as calling for changing customs and changing "sky-high price betrothal gifts" can achieve certain results. “What’s more important is how to use endogenous power to alleviate this problem through rural revitalization.”
Recently, a reporter from Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News conducted an exclusive interview with Huang Zhenhua on related topics.
119 sample villages
51 village cadres reported that it was difficult for older men and young people to get married.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: What gave you the opportunity to investigate the marriage problems of older men and young people in rural areas?
Huang Zhenhua: Speaking of which, it was actually an accident. The China Rural Research Institute of Central China Normal University, where I work, organizes students to conduct field surveys across the country every year. We call it the "Hundred Village Observation". It has been 18 years since its launch. The "100 Villages Observation" questionnaire is divided into basic and thematic. The basic survey remains basically unchanged, and the direction of the thematic survey is adjusted every year according to hot spots. The theme of our survey in 2023 is actually "Rural Family Construction", which includes some questions about marriage.
After the first round of data collection, we found that the number of unmarried older rural men is somewhat prominent, reflecting some cyclical problems. Through the survey, we discovered this hotly discussed data: among the 119 sample villages, village cadres in 51 villages reported that there was a serious problem in the marriage of older men and young people, accounting for 42.7%.
In fact, this is not the first time we have noticed this phenomenon. More than ten years ago, around 2013, when we went to the village to communicate with village cadres, some village cadres reported that there were many unmarried older men in the local area. Is this phenomenon just a case, or is it a common situation? Due to lack of data support, we could not see it at the time. But based on our long-term rural survey experience, this is definitely a process that gradually intensifies, at least in the past 10 years.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: In the research, how did the research team define "older age"?
Huang Zhenhua: There is no unified definition of "older young men" in the academic community. Generally speaking, if you are over 30 years old, you can basically be identified as an older young man. But this is not necessarily the case from a rural perspective. For example, the general age of marriage in a certain village is around 23. If a young man is not married by the age of 28, he is considered an older unmarried young man by the locals. In this survey, we combined the local people's perspectives to define what "older age" is.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: What are the general channels for rural young men to choose a spouse?
Huang Zhenhua: We did not set special questions for this survey, so there is no macro data to support the proportion of relevant channels. However, the channels should be diversified, including free love, traditional matchmaking, and even if the woman is local. There are also those from other places.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: Will young men be more inclined to look for local products? Or out of town?
Huang Zhenhua: This is a very interesting question. According to common sense, if young rural men, especially older men, want to urgently solve the problem of starting a family, they will definitely not be restricted locally or outside the country. But that's not entirely true. Influenced by local traditional concepts, young men in different regions have different preferences for local and foreign women.
For example, in a rural area in a central province, if a young man can marry a woman from other places, the young man will be regarded as "more capable" by his fellow villagers, which is something worth bragging about. In contrast, marrying a local woman may be a relatively "second best" choice.
The number of marriageable women in rural areas is small
The cost of marriage is high and the sense of marital identity is reduced.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: In previous studies, some attributed the "difficulty in getting married among older rural youth" to the chain effects driven by the family planning policy, high betrothal gifts, etc. What do you think are the reasons?
Huang Zhenhua: This is a structural problem. We have summarized the causes, which can be summarized as "one less, one high and three low".
One refers to the relatively small number of marriageable women in rural areas, which is a phenomenon that occurs with the outflow of large numbers of people from rural areas. Relatively speaking, young women emigrate in greater numbers and tend to get married outside, while men tend to return to their hometowns to start families. Added to the gender imbalance caused by traditional rural fertility concepts, the number of marriageable women remaining in the village is even smaller.
One high refers to the high cost of marriage, also known as high bride price. In our survey, we found that in some provinces, especially those with less developed economies, the bride price is generally high, and in some places it will increase year by year. For example, in a county in southwestern Shandong Province, its betrothal gift in 2020 was 188,000, which is already quite high. In 2023, it became "three ninety-nine thousand," which is nearly 300,000. Many places also require the man to buy a house or a car, which is another expense. Under the pressure of betrothal gifts, it is difficult for some young men to leave their single families.
The dilemma of "more men than women" has also raised the price of bride price to a certain extent. In order to win the woman's favor, the man may increase the betrothal gift and pay more economic costs.
The three lows include low personal and family income, low academic qualifications and professional skills, and low recognition of traditional marriage.
The first "two lows" are relatively easy to understand, but the third "low" is worthy of attention. In our survey, we found that the concept of marriage among some older rural young men has changed, and their recognition of marriage has become lower. There are two reasons for this. On the one hand, there is a big gap between ideals and personal reality, and people who want to find things but can’t find them form a psychological gap; on the other hand, urbanization development has impacted traditional concepts, and some young men’s concepts have changed from “can’t find things”. But still try hard to find it" has become "don't look for it at all". We call this the ideological reason.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: You said this is a "structural problem". How do you understand "structural"?
Huang Zhenhua: This is not a matter between two people, but a social issue. It is inseparable from the current reality in rural areas. For example, the traditional concept of childbearing leads to more boys and fewer girls. Under the economic and social structure of urban-rural dual division, there is a large outflow of rural people and the hollowing out of rural areas. These are all structural problems.
Curbing "sky-high price gifts"
Find solutions from within the village
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: This survey covered 26 provinces (cities, districts) across the country. Judging from the survey results, in which areas is the phenomenon of "difficulty in choosing a spouse" more prominent?
Huang Zhenhua: According to our survey data, 825 of the 1,785 farmers believe that the marriage problem for older men and young men in local rural areas is serious, accounting for 46.1%, with the proportions in the east, middle and west accounting for 38.6%, 54.8% and 43.2% respectively.
What causes this regional disparity? This time we have not set up a special topic to collect relevant data, but it can still be seen from individual cases. Provinces in the central region, such as Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Anhui, generally have limited land resources and large populations, so the contradiction between man and land is acute. In order to make a living, villagers must go out to work, which has aggravated the local phenomenon of "more men than women" and made it difficult to choose a mate. In addition, we found that the bride price in these provinces is also relatively high.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: What is the standard for the research team to define "high bride price"?
Huang Zhenhua: We have not set a specific number. In the questionnaire, we treated this as an open-ended question, and the interviewed village cadres made specific judgments based on local conditions.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: There are many voices calling for changing customs and curbing "sky-high price gifts". What do you think of this?
Huang Zhenhua: It is certainly necessary to curb sky-high betrothal gifts. But I think that to solve the problem of sky-high bride price, we still need to find some endogenous motivation, that is, we need to find solutions from within the village.
Feiyue Village, Lidian Town, Guangshui City, Suizhou City, Hubei Province provides a good example. Our investigation revealed that a local Red and White Council New Style Association has been established specifically to curb bad social habits in weddings and funerals. Within its jurisdiction, it is required that happy events should be held in new ways, funerals should be kept simple, small things should not be done, and no big things should be done. , the results achieved are pretty good. Why? Because the members of the Red and White Board of Directors are all village cadres and villagers who have high prestige in the village and are enthusiastic about public welfare, their words are more weighty and convincing in the local area, and they can better resolve such problems.
How to solve the "difficulties in marriage"?
To reverse the current situation of outflow of rural resources
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: The research team surveyed more than 100 village cadres. Overall, what are the views of grassroots village cadres on the group of “older unmarried young men in rural areas”?
Huang Zhenhua: The vast majority of village cadres will try their best to create blind date conditions for unmarried older men to ease the problems of marriage and love. From the perspective of grassroots governments, they may be more concerned about the social risks hidden behind the pressure to choose a spouse.
To talk about this topic, we need to first clarify a question: Why is home important? The family is actually a stabilizer. It is an important carrier to avoid some social conflicts. When a young man and woman get married and have children, they have the motivation and support to work hard. However, if an individual is separated from the family for a long time, the possibility of instability will increase. For example, he may develop resistance to society or have bad ideas. Among the villagers who have some problems, the proportion of older unmarried young men is generally higher than that of married young men.
This group should be the group that needs attention in the process of social governance. My suggestion is that in the future, we should not only pay more attention to and track the problem of "difficulty in getting married", but also strengthen the investigation and research on the size and trends of older unmarried young men, so as to optimize relevant policies in a timely manner and increase the size of this group. Try not to make it too big.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: How do you personally view this group?
Huang Zhenhua: My opinion is neither positive nor negative. I think we need to look at it from a social perspective and see the structural dilemma behind the group.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News: What is your opinion on how to solve this problem?
Huang Zhenhua: The solution here includes three levels. We can understand it as micro, meso and macro, as well as short-term, medium-term and long-term.
The first level is the individual level. To put it simply, it is to create more opportunities for older unmarried young men to choose a spouse, such as holding blind dates. This approach can alleviate some of the pressure to choose a mate, but it does not cure the problem.
The second level is the institutional level. For example, we have introduced rectification measures to address the problem of sky-high betrothal gifts, providing vocational skills training for older unmarried young men, increasing family income, improving personal abilities, and helping them shape a correct view of marriage and love. These practices can alleviate the mate selection pressure of this group to a large extent, but they are not enough. It can only treat the symptoms, not the root cause.
The third level is the social level. To truly solve this problem, we must fundamentally reverse the current outflow of rural resources, make people willing to live in villages, and resources willing to go to villages, which is what we call "rural revitalization." After rural revitalization, the endogenous driving force is sufficient, and many problems can be fundamentally alleviated. Reflected in the issue of mate selection, the ratio of men to women is gradually becoming more balanced, the economic level is improved, the concept of marriage is changing, etc. This is the fundamental solution.
Of course, it is difficult to completely reverse the urban-rural pattern in a short period of time, the outflow of rural resources will continue to a considerable extent, and the problem of marriage between older men and young people will not be solved overnight. This is something we need to face objectively. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for us to do anything. At the moment, whether it’s calling for changing customs, curbing sky-high prices for betrothal gifts, or “rewarding matchmakers NT$600 for every pair made,” these are all things we can do. This problem needs to be solved, and we must look at it as a social problem.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News special reporter Wu Chaoxin reporter Wu Yang