Educational 'marrying down' more common among women

The post-1990 generation in China, represented by an era of rapid economic development and a social media boom, has become known for breaking with tradition, and now it is tipping the educational balance in marriage, according to a recent study.

Married women born between 1990 and 1994 represent the first group more likely to have received higher education than their spouses, reversing a longstanding pattern in which husbands tended to be the more educated half of the nuptial union.

The emerging trend has primarily been driven by vast improvements in female education, and will have implications for families' childbearing decisions and the nation's overall fertility level, said Qing Shisong, head of the Population Research Institute at East China Normal University in Shanghai and author of the study.

The study was first published in Sociological Studies, a bimonthly Chinese-language journal in March, but has only recently attracted widespread attention.

It examined data from 12,500 married couples, with all wives born between 1950 and 1994. The data was gathered from a China Family Panel Studies survey led by Peking University.

It found that 25.8 percent of married women born between 1990 and 1994 have a more advanced educational level than their husbands, compared with 21.7 percent of those whose husbands are better educated.

The younger the wives were, the more likely that they had "married down" in terms of educational attainment. For wives born between 1950 and 1954, the proportion of this type of marriage was only 6.9 percent.

The study noted that more than half of married women, regardless of age group, had an equal or similar education level as their husbands.

However, among younger generations, couples were more likely to be both well educated, meaning they both had diplomas from vocational colleges or higher institutions.

The study also found that the average number of children that each couple had fell from 2.32 among those born from 1950 to 1954 to 1.55 for those born from 1990 to 1994. The ratio of couples bearing two or more children also declined from 75.1 percent to 44.2 percent between these two age demographics.

The author said that couples with similarly advanced education — or those with a better educated wife — tended to have fewer children.

Qing speculated that women who have high education levels or are relatively better educated than their husbands were more likely to negotiate with their spouses to have fewer children.

Wives who marry down educationally will likely have fewer children if they still have to shoulder the bulk of household affairs and childcare responsibilities.

Qing said that despite dramatic improvements in education and progress in gender equality, married women are still burdened with heavy childcare duties.

"There is a lack of sufficient policies and regulations to support equal division of labor at home," he said.

Some policies have reinforced the role of women as being the primary family caregiver. For instance, many local governments have extended maternity leave, but have failed to provide equally long childcare leave for male employees, he said.

"To achieve an ideal fertility rate, it is crucial to advocate for equal gender roles and establish solid rules and regulations to ensure implementation," he said.

The paper suggested future supportive fertility policies should strive to help couples balance work and parenting, such as encouraging them to share childcare responsibilities and rolling out measures to alleviate related burdens.

"It is important to gain a deeper understanding of the needs of females, males and families of different social strata and take proactive efforts to respond to their needs," Qing said.