Marriage, Health and Old-Age Support: Risk to Rural Involuntary Bachelors’ Family Development in Contemporary China

Yang Meng, The National Police University for Criminal Justice
Nan Zhang, The National Police University for Criminal Justice
Bo Yang, Shaanxi Normal University
Shuzhuo Li, Xi'an Jiaotong University
Marcus W. Feldman, Stanford University

As a consequence of the male-biased sex ratio at birth in China since the 1980s, an increasing number of surplus rural males have been affected by a marriage squeeze becoming involuntary bachelors. Under China’s universal heterosexual marriage tradition, family development of rural involuntary bachelors has largely been ignored, but in China’s gender-imbalanced society it is necessary to adopt a family-based approach to identify and study the plight of rural involuntary bachelors. Studies indicate that these men face multiple risks from the perspectives of their life course, the family life cycle, and the family ethic. These risks are caused by a conflict between the individual’s family life and family ethics and are mainly reflected in problems concerning marriage, health, and old-age support. Not only do these vulnerabilities affect the individual and family development across the whole life cycle, but also pose major risks to social development. In order to deal with risks faced by rural involuntary bachelors, core ethical principles, including autonomy, beneficence, and justice need to be adopted. Through adjustments to informal support provided by the family and formal support provided by policy-makers, risk of uncertainty in family development faced by rural involuntary bachelors could be reduced.

Keywords: Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Families, Unions and Households

See paper.