Translated Abstract
How to reduce the gender imbalance has become a major strategic and livelihood issue into 21st century, because the gender imbalance not only cumber the sustained development of society but also challenge the traditional family supporting and social pension. Since 1980s, the abnormal sex ratios at birth and the severe male marriage squeeze have led to lots of oulder unmarried men can not find a partner for their first marriage. However, in the context of Chinese traditional family old-age support system, a large number of older unmarried men will put a huge strain on supporting the same number of elderly parents. The problem of supporting older unmarried men’s parents caused by gender imbalance and male marriage squeeze, is not only population problem, but aslo a major issues of social management for government departments. Thus, clarifying the effect of sons’ marital status on intergenerational support in rural family is very important, which will help to assess the impact of the marriage squeeze on old-age support and develop some corresponding policies.
Using data from a sample survey conducted by Institute for Population and Development Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong University in four towns in Yi county of Anhui Province in August 2008, this study have made a systematic substantial evidence research about male marriage squeeze on intergenerational support in rural family by the methods of multiple regression models and hierarchical regression models. And providing some policy implications to release the social pension pressure in the context of male marriage squeeze in rural areas.
The main contributions of this dissertation are the following:
First, this study puts forward the children’s marriage differences model and framework of intergenerational support under the background of male marriage squeeze. According to the marriage suqeeze and family supporting in rural area, on the basis of previous intergenerational support models, we propose the marriage differences model from the perspective of children/siblings’ marrital status under the background of male marriage squeeze, and establish a corresponding analytical framework from two levels as a whole family and individual children, which breaks the limitation of prior researches have paid more attention about the children’s gender difference of intergenerational suport but ignored the children or siblings’ marriage difference of intergenerational suport. The developded model and framework will helpful to not only enrich the existing theories of intergenerational support and its application in China, but also helpful to get a comprehensive understanding of the effects of marriage suqeeze on old age support and social pension insrurance system.
Second, we find that male marriage suqeeze has both positive and negative influence on whole family’s intergenerational support. Our study makes up the lack of examination of children’s marital status and intergenerational support in rural family, find that the children provide less financial support and emotional support in the family with older unmarried sons than the family without unmarried sons, that is marraie suqeeze have weaken the function of family supporting. But the parents in the family with older unmarried son face fewer risk of becoming empty nest elderly, and lightening the housework burden from the parents to children. Such results reveal that the male marriage suqeeze has not only negative influence on old age support, which breaks previous partial conclusions of the effects of marriage squeeze on old age support.
Third, we find male marriage suqeeze has weaken the sons’ financial support for parents, and changed the traditional living pattern of “parents lived with at least one married son”. This study makes up the limitation of previous research have ignored the extragenerational relationship in intergenerational support between different brother’s marital status, find that older unmarried sons provide less financial support for parents than married sons, most of older unmarried sons live with parents, which has changed the traditional living pattern of “parents lived with at least one married son”, but for older married sons who lost their own nuclear family have reduced the housework burden for parents; the existence of older unmarreid sons have negetive demonstration effect for their married brothers, the married sons with older unmarreid brothers provide less financial support and emotional support than the married sons without older unmarried brothers.
Fourth, we find the traditional gender division of family support for elderly parents have some concrete forms in the context of male marriage suqeeze. This study breaks the limitation of previous research have paid too much attetion to the effects of marriage squeeze on sons’ intergenerational support, reveal that the male marriage squeeze will also affect the behavior of intergenerational support provieded by married daughters. Compared with married daughters, we find that older unmarried sons provide even less financial support than married daughter, but they provide more instrumental support than married daughter, which means that the existence of older unmarreid sons have overturned the traditional gender division of family supporting for elderly parents, that is“sons main provide financial support, daughter mian take of life care”; the existence of older unmarreid sons have negetive demonstration effect for their married daughters, the married daughters with older unmarreid brothers provide less financial support and emotional support than the married daughters without older unmarried brothers.
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