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author | nanfengchuang reporter he guosheng

editor | xiang you

difficulty in getting married is a dark cloud that has always hung over older rural youth.

recently, many places have responded to proposals reflecting the difficulties of marriage and love among older rural youth, once again bringing this topic back to the public eye.

on september 8, the civil affairs bureau of fuyuan county, qujing city, yunnan province responded directly to a proposal by a local cppcc member: difficulty in getting married among older men and young people in rural areas has become an increasingly prominent social problem. according to a county survey, it has become a common phenomenon that in each local village there are at least a few or as many as dozens of older male youths unable to find spouses.

two months ago, tonggu county in jiangxi province also mentioned in its reply to the proposal that there was an obvious phenomenon that "rural boys cannot marry and urban girls cannot marry." the difficulty of marriage and love among older young people has become a common social phenomenon, and it is urgent to build a sound social support mechanism for marriage and love among older young people.

in early 2024, the china rural research institute of central china normal university released a survey report on the "marriage status of older males and young people 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.

based on this, it is an established fact that it is difficult for older men in rural areas to get married in many areas, both in perception and reality. in the field of public opinion, the attribution of this phenomenon is simplified as rural older men are "too poor" and urban women are "too picky", resulting in "leftovers". in fact, the difficulties in getting married among older rural young people are not simple.

"hello! mr. tree" stills

li yongping, a professor at the school of humanities and social development of northwest agricultural and forestry university, has been conducting research and fieldwork on older unmarried men in rural areas for more than ten years. he found that there are obvious regional differences in this problem, and its causes include structural factors such as the imbalance of the sex ratio in the population. , marriage squeeze caused by regional differences and individual disadvantages and other specific factors.

"the imbalance of gender ratio exists objectively, and it is difficult to fundamentally solve the problem of rural men's difficulty in getting married in a short time." li yongping said that while we are trying our best to solve the problem of rural men's difficulty in getting married, we should also pay attention to how to protect the rural singles group as much as possible. a normal life so that they can live decently in village society.

the following is li yongping’s account:

those born in the 80s and 90s are the main group of bachelors

when we were studying for our master's degree in 2012, we accidentally noticed some older unmarried men in the village while conducting research in rural areas of guangxi. after that, based on that survey, i completed my master's thesis, the topic of which was the issue of rural bachelors.

my research direction has always been family sociology and rural sociology, and i do more than 100 days of field research in rural areas every year. every time i pay attention to the problem of singles in the village where i live, i also make some statistics based on the village.

for more than 10 years, my research on rural bachelors has covered the east, middle and west. in my impression, the difficulty in getting married among rural men began to become a common problem around 2010.

stills from "mountains and seas"

historically, there have always been men in rural areas who are difficult to marry, commonly known as bachelors. however, these were sporadic cases in the past, mostly due to physical or intellectual disabilities. there are also some families with poor conditions and many brothers who are unable to get married.

around 2010, when those born in the 1980s and 1990s reached the marriageable age, the problem of marriage difficulties among rural men became more concentrated. why is it such a time point?

a major cause of the bachelor problem is the imbalance of gender ratio structure, and those born in the 1980s and 1990s are the two generations with the most serious gender ratio imbalance.

however, although the difficulty in getting married among older men in rural areas is a common problem, it does not mean that these people are evenly distributed in various rural areas and that older men in rural areas will have difficulty in getting married.

from a macro level, it is difficult for rural men to get married, and there are regional differences. in the rural areas of the east, there are very few singles, but in the central and western regions, especially in the mountainous rural areas of the west, there are many singles, and even singles form a nest. for example, in some mountainous areas in hubei and guizhou that i researched, the proportion of singles is very high.

from a mesofamily perspective, three factors will affect rural men's marriage. the first is the family's financial status, which is the basis, especially now that the cost of marriage is relatively high, it is even more important.

the second is the degree of intergenerational responsibility of parents, that is, whether parents are willing to make efforts for the marriage of their children; the third is the evaluation of the family in village society. if the reputation is not good, it will be more difficult for the children to get married.

from a micro perspective of male individuals, appearance, personality, communication ability, etc. will also affect marriage. especially in recent years, i have found in my research that whether a man is outgoing, good at interacting with girls, and whether he can speak well has become more and more important.

central and western rural areas have the most singles

when i first started studying the issue of rural bachelors, i didn’t pay much attention to regional issues, but looked at it as a general problem. later, i investigated more places and found that there were great regional differences and that singles were not evenly distributed in various places.

there are two types of regional differences. the first is the regional differences between the “east, middle and west” regions based on their degree of economic development. this difference is easy to understand. the core is economic variables. the economically developed east will squeeze marriages in the central and western regions, especially the remote mountainous areas in the west, which are most susceptible to being squeezed and become marriage depressions.

there are few singles in rural areas of developed eastern areas. local men give priority to finding local women. if they cannot find them locally, they can fall back to looking for wives from other places. after the rise of the working economy, many women from underdeveloped areas will go to the eastern regions to work. this makes the current marriage market no longer a traditional local intermarriage circle, but a national marriage market.

"love is delicious" stills

therefore, even though men from eastern rural areas are in poor condition in all aspects, they still have a dominant position in the national marriage market. however, due to the outflow of women from rural areas in the central and western regions, they do not have an advantage in the national marriage market. those rural men with poor conditions are easily squeezed out and find it difficult to get married.

the second type of difference is the "south, middle and north" regional differences arising from the social structure of the village.

according to the differences in the matching methods between blood relationship structure and geographical structure, chinese rural areas can be initially divided into three ideal types: united villages in the south, divided villages in the north, and dispersed villages in the center.

let’s talk about the conclusion first. among the three types of villages, the splintered villages in the north have the lowest probability of producing bachelors, and the number of bachelors is also relatively small. for example, i found in rural henan that the number of bachelors in a village is usually in single digits.

in the middle are the clan-based villages in the south, such as ganzhou in jiangxi and qingyuan in guangdong that i have researched. the number of bachelors in these villages is not too large, but it is slightly more than in the northern villages. the largest number are dispersed villages in the central part, which we also call atomized villages. hunan, hubei, and sichuan also belong to the central part of our classification.

behind the distinction between "south, middle and north", two factors lead to this difference in the probability and number of singles: family support and village rejection.

family support refers to the extent of parents’ support for their offspring’s marriage. nowadays, the cost of marriage is quite high. most young people have limited financial accumulation when they get married, and most of them still rely on their parents.

the extent to which parents are willing to bear the cost of their children's marriage has a greater relationship with whether their children can successfully marry. generally speaking, the more parents are willing to bear more marriage costs for their children, the less likely their children will be single, and vice versa.

stills of "happiness to ten thousand houses"

in the "south, central and north" region, northern rural areas have the greatest support for marriage among their children. the clan villages in the south are in the middle and will have support, but are weaker than those in the north. in the atomized villages in the central region, intergenerational responsibility is the weakest, and parents have the least support for their children's marriages. if you have the ability, you will bear some of it, but it will mainly be borne by your children.

the reason why parents in northern rural areas spend all their money to help their children get married is because northern rural areas have a competitive social structure. there are usually several surnames in the village, and the relationship between people and land is tense, so internal competition is relatively strong.

the competition is mainly a competition between people. first, we must ensure that the children can get married smoothly, so that they can reproduce and grow the family.

therefore, for northern parents, the marriage of their children is a rigid life task. if they are not done well, it will affect their position in village society and face greater pressure from village public opinion. if someone's son is not married, the villagers will think that the parents are incompetent and do not know how to behave.

the clan-based villages in the south are a kind of "own-people" structure. most of them share the same surname. the blood relationship is strong and the competition is relatively weak. at this time, the pressure transmitted to the parents will not be too great.

the atomized villages in the central part of the country are relatively scattered, and everyone holds an attitude that it is okay to live their own lives well. parents do not have much pressure on their children to get married.

the degree of village rejection, that is, the degree of acceptance of the bachelors themselves and their families by the village society, will also have an impact on the formation of bachelors.

judging from the conclusions of our survey, the more repulsive rural society is to singles, the less likely they are to be single. everyone will try their best not to become single, and parents will mobilize all the resources of the family to get their children married as much as possible.

northern rural areas have the strongest rejection of singles. for example, in rural areas of north china, if your son is not married, he will gradually be marginalized by the village. people will think that the family and the young people are incompetent.

stills of "happiness to ten thousand houses"

clan villages in the south are more tolerant of singles than villages in the north, a state of both exclusion and protection. exclusion occurs in some ceremonial occasions, such as some ritual activities in ancestral halls, where older and unmarried people may not be allowed to participate. but i won’t be ostracized in my daily life, and overall i don’t feel strongly about being ostracized.

in the atomized villages in central china, not only are there no objections to older unmarried men, but they also feel that bachelors are no different from normal people. neither the bachelor nor his family feels the pressure of being excluded, so they will not mobilize all their resources to get married.

overall, the two dimensions of family support and village rejection are linked. the village society's attitude towards the bachelor and his family will in turn affect the family's support for the marriage of older unmarried men.

from this we also find that the image of bachelors varies greatly in different places. you can tell at a glance that bachelors in northern villages have a slovenly overall image. because he is very marginalized, has no enthusiasm for life, and is a broken person. but in the middle of the country, if someone doesn't tell you that he is a bachelor, you won't know it at all, because he is no different from other people, and may even have a better life than others.

from "the good of two surnames" to "the good of both sexes"

among the reasons why older men in rural areas have difficulties in getting married, the imbalance of sex ratio is the biggest structural background. this objective background will inevitably lead to some men being single, which we call gender squeeze in sociology.

in addition, public opinion generally believes that high bride prices have also led to the problem of singles in rural areas. i have reservations about it. the causal relationship between the high bride price and the bachelor may have been reversed.

from my research, first of all, men are in a weak position in the marriage market due to the imbalance of gender ratio, which intensifies men's competition in the marriage market. at this time, they may increase their competitive advantage by increasing the bride price, which leads to the continued increase of the bride price.

in order to increase one's competitive advantage, the bride price is constantly raised / drawing by fengjian che

the increase in betrothal gifts will further make it more difficult for men to get married, especially for lower-class men in remote rural areas. therefore, in reality, some men do get divorced because their family finances are poor and they cannot afford the high cost of marriage. this is also a squeeze within the marriage market.

in addition, there are regional squeezes. in addition to differences between different regions, such as the east squeezing the central and west, there is also squeezing within traditional local intermarriage circles. for example, within a county, towns with good conditions will also squeeze towns with poor conditions.

moreover, our tradition is to "live with the husband". women can marry anywhere, but most men still go back to their hometown to get married. after the rise of the working economy, women began to emigrate, further exacerbating the marriage depression, and making it more difficult for men to get married in some remote places with poor conditions.

men's personal characteristics can also be a reason for being single, and this factor is becoming more and more important nowadays. nowadays, love is free, unlike in the past when it was the orders of parents and the words of matchmakers. the relationship between the sexes pays more attention to personal characteristics. when a man has some characteristics that are not popular with women in the current marriage market, he may become a bachelor. for example, he is relatively "honest". i call this kind of "honest bachelor".

honesty used to be a compliment, but now it has become a disadvantage. why don’t people like honest people now? this is related to the changes in the concept of the entire society. in the past, people thought that being honest meant being honest, and this kind of person was very suitable for living. but now if you are too honest, you will not have an advantage in the workplace or in marriage, and it will seem boring.

in addition, from the perspective of marriage itself, today's young people are not marrying for the sake of continuing the family line and extending the family, but more for personal emotional needs, just like the emotional value that young women often talk about today. therefore, the premise of marriage is that two people can chat well and have the ability to interact emotionally. however, some men, especially rural men, may not be good at interacting with women.

"hello! mr. tree" stills

at the same time, this is also caused by changes in the value of marriage. in the past, marriage was a "good thing between two surnames" and marriage was the union of two families. but now, marriage is a "good thing between two sexes" and more emphasis is placed on the individual rather than the family.

based on the above analysis, if we make a portrait of an older man who is difficult to get married in rural areas, it would be something like this: he may live in economically difficult areas in the central and western regions, especially in remote mountainous areas. or his family support is weak, including his parents' poor health or bad behavior. or maybe he is more honest and not good at talking, or he is the so-called "mama's boy" that many girls will mention.

but these three levels do not exist in a man at the same time. it may be only one of them, or it may be two. if several factors are superimposed together, they will be the group most likely to be single.

"leftover women" and bachelors have different logics

when we talk about the difficulty in getting married for rural men, we also mention the phenomenon of “leftover women”. as the saying goes, "you can't get married in rural areas, but you can't get married in cities." this phenomenon does exist, but most of these "leftover women" are left on their own initiative, often because they are unwilling to lower their standards.

why the two phenomena of singles and "leftover women" coexist, there is a problem of marriage gradient. in marriage, men usually look downward to find someone with slightly worse conditions than themselves in all aspects, while women always look upward. therefore, the "leftover" women are actually high-quality women. for example, our previous research found that the phenomenon of leftover women in the county system is very prominent. in the county town, women in the system are already high-quality local women.

therefore, the logic and reasons for the emergence of "leftover women" and bachelors are different. one is "leftover" proactively, while the other is passively unable to marry.

stills of "ode to joy"

in the past, the problem of rural bachelors may have been an individual case and a personal problem, but now it has become a social problem. if not taken seriously, it may have some negative impacts.

for example, these older unmarried men may bring some instability to the village. because bachelors cannot live a normal family life, they may find some alternative channels of sexual satisfaction. for example, during our research, we learned that some bachelors will harass married women, especially those left behind.

in addition, how to let them live like normal people, especially in areas where single groups are easily excluded, is very important to allow them to participate normally in the public life of the village. if not handled well, he may become an obstructive force in village governance.

another issue is the old-age care of bachelors. since bachelors have no offspring, they become five-guaranteed households after the age of 60 and rely on the state for their retirement. but when this group becomes particularly large, it also puts pressure on the country and may have an impact on their elderly care.

a bachelor has no offspring, and retirement is also a problem/photography by fengjian che

we have also seen that in recent years, many places have introduced a lot of measures to try to solve the problem of marriage difficulties for rural men. however, i have always felt that it is difficult to fundamentally solve problems at the marriage and family level through policies.

when it comes to some customs and cultural things, some efforts can be made at the policy level, such as reforming wedding customs and resisting high betrothal gifts. but it is indeed difficult to fundamentally change the difficulty of marriage, because the imbalance of sex ratio exists objectively. in reality, there are indeed many more men, and we can only wait for the sex ratio to become balanced.

but what we can do is to ensure the normal life of the singles as much as possible so that they can live a decent life in village society. in this way, at least from a large perspective, whether he is married or not will not become a destabilizing factor for society.

the pictures in the article are from the internet; the first picture was produced by fengjian che