An Empirical Study of the Chinese Marriage Market: “Leftover” or Not?

Abstract

Using census data from 1990 to 2010, this paper describes the trend of the Chinese marriage market focusing on “leftover men” and “leftover women”. In general, it was identified that there was an increasing share of being single for young and more educated population. The share of single population for less educated men after age 35 was higher than other age groups across the years, providing consistent evidence for leftover men. Meanwhile, more educated women showed no clear difference in marriage rate than others in their late 30s. This study further found that increasing comparative supply of men and more educated women due to demographic change and education reform explains the phenomena observed. In addition, women who get married later were found to have husbands showing disadvantages in age and education level, while men displayed no similar pattern, suggesting that Chinese women might lower their selecting standard as their age increases.