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Too few women? Love, intimacy and marriage in masculinising China

Eklund, Lisa LU (2015) Demography and values - an international perspective
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
keywords
marriage, risk, intimacy, sociology: sociologi, sex ratio
conference name
Demography and values - an international perspective
conference dates
2015-09-09
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Abstract: The presentation evolves around how we can understand inertia and change in terms of values pertaining to love, intimacy and marriage in China, and how and to what extent the fact that China is experiencing a masculinisation of its population can be one explaining factor. It demonstrates that the way in which the shortage of women is portrayed in media, policy debates and academia alike has contributed to a risk narrative, mediating that staying unmarried is something pitiful and problematic. A parallel risk narrative of women aged 27+ being “leftover” has been constructed by state media and popular culture, countervailing the presumed advantage women have in mate selection due to their shortage as postulated by both the demographic opportunity thesis and exchange theory (Guttentag and Secord 1983). These risk narratives contribute to amplifying the hegemonic position of marriage in the Chinese society and fuels the idea that women due to their shortage can and should use marriage for social mobility purposes (marrying hypergamously), and that they must not wait too long. They also contribute to consolidating relationships early on and add an additional risk dimension to divorces due to the “remote consequences of choice” (Illouz 2012), where risk of being single impacts how choices for union formation and dissolution are formed. All of this contributes to the Chinese marriage market being less flexible, and help explain why China has not experience the same move towards the second demographic transition as many of its neighbouring countries.
id
65a8ef5a-2861-4e96-80d8-3d7719760dff (old id 7864281)
alternative location
http://folk.uio.no/torkildl/ndf/demography_and_values.pdf
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 14:30:41
date last changed
2018-11-21 21:20:44
@misc{65a8ef5a-2861-4e96-80d8-3d7719760dff,
  author       = {{Eklund, Lisa}},
  keywords     = {{marriage; risk; intimacy; sociology: sociologi; sex ratio}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  title        = {{Too few women? Love, intimacy and marriage in masculinising China}},
  url          = {{http://folk.uio.no/torkildl/ndf/demography_and_values.pdf}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}