Age-discrepant marriages and educational assortative mating in urban China: The exchange of youth for status

Abstract

Objective

This study investigates youth–status exchange in urban China, a country rooted in traditional gender roles and gendered mate selection preferences.

Background

Status exchange operates as a mechanism through which social boundaries are crossed in intermarriage. In contrast to the extensive research on marital exchanges involving ascribed traits and achieved characteristics, limited attention has been paid to youth–status exchange.

Method

Using data from the 2003 to 2021 Chinese General Survey, this study operationalizes the youth–status exchange as age–education exchange, employing log-linear models to examine the exchange patterns and trends by controlling for marginal differences and confounding trends.

Results

The findings reveal robust gender-asymmetric youth–education exchange patterns in urban China from 1981 to 2021. Women show strong evidence of trading their youth for their spouse's education, whereas men exhibit resistance to the exchange. The strength of exchange between women's youth and men's education increased noticeably for the 2010–2021 marriage cohort. Additionally, men's delayed marriage intensifies the exchange between women's youth and men's education, consistent with men's preference for women with “fixed ideal age.”

Conclusion

Persistent patriarchal ideals and traditional gender roles in urban China valorize women's youth while devaluing their achieved status, thereby promoting the exchange between women's youth and men's status. This exchange also serves as a mobility channel for young women to secure more advantageous marriages.