Typological Features and Determinants of Men’s Marriage Expenses in Rural China: Evidence from a Village-Level Survey

Abstract

Poverty due to the high marriage expenses in rural China has drawn considerable attention. In this paper, based on the data of the “Hundreds of Villages Survey in China” conducted in 2018, we analyze the characteristics, trends, and typological features of rural men’s marriage expenses, and identify the determinants of rural men’s marriage expenses types under the guidance of marriage exchange theory. With the help of latent profile analysis, multinomial logit analysis, and OLS analysis, this study firstly identifies four types of marriage expenses for Chinese rural men including the “bride price & marital house”, the “mixed”, the “bride price biased”, and the “marital house biased”, and secondly finds significant associations of educational level matching, occupational level matching, and type of urbanization with different types of rural men’s marriage expenses. If a rural man has a higher education than his wife, his marriage costs are less likely to be “bride price biased”, and when his occupational level is higher, his marriage cost is more likely to be “marital house biased”, which means greater financial pressure on him. Our research verifies the theory of marriage exchange into the quantitative analysis of marriage expenses for the first time, which effectively explains the reasons for the rising cost of marriage and provides an empirical basis for effectively managing this social problem.