The impact of sent-down movement on Chinese women's age at first marriage
The impact of sent-down movement on Chinese women's age at first marriage
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DOI：
10.4054/demres.2016.34.28
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发表时间：
2016-05
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Shige Song;Lu Zheng
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Shige Song;Lu Zheng
研究背景：在1970 - 1979年的短短时间内，中国妇女的初婚年龄平均提高了3岁以上。人口统计学家将其归因于20世纪70年代的“晚、长、少”计划生育政策，而一些社会学家则认为，1968-1978年的“下放”运动动员了1700多万城市青年并将他们送到农村，这也可能发挥了作用。研究方法：利用新获得的高质量的全国代表性抽样调查数据，我们估计了被送下对妇女的初婚年龄的影响。然后，我们进行了反事实模拟，将1970年至1979年女性结婚年龄的总增长分解为归因于send-down的成分和归因于其他因素的剩余成分。结果：我们的研究结果表明，被送下来推迟中国妇女的初婚年龄1.2年。对城市妇女来说，这占1970年至1979年初婚年龄总增长的13.3%。对于城市和农村妇女来说，送葬对结婚年龄增长的总体贡献不到1%。结论：一方面，送养政策在中国人口转变过程中没有发挥重要作用;另一方面，对于1 700万被下放的青年来说，在很小的时候就被迫离开家，在艰苦和陌生的农村环境中定居，这标志着他们向成年人的艰难过渡，不可避免地扰乱了他们的正常生活。这项研究显示，晚婚可能只是冰山一角。
Background: Chinese women’s age at first marriage increased for more than three years on average during the short period between 1970 and 1979. Demographers attributed it to the 'later, longer, fewer' family planning policy of the 1970s whereas some sociologists suggested that the 'send-down' movement in 1968-1978, which mobilized over 17 million urban youths and sent them to the countryside, may also have played a role. Methods: Using newly available high-quality national representative sample survey data, we estimated the effect of being sent-down on women’s age at first marriage. We then conducted counterfactual simulations to decompose the total increase in women’s age of marriage between 1970 and 1979 into a component attributed to the send-down and a residual component attributed to other factors. Results: Our results suggest that being sent-down delayed Chinese women’s age at first marriage by 1.2 years. For urban women, this accounts for 13.3 percent of the total increase in their age at first marriage between 1970 and 1979. For urban and rural women together, the overall contribution of send-down to the increase in their age of marriage is less than one percent. Conclusions: On one hand, the send-down policy did not play an important role in the demographic transition process in China. On the other hand, for the 17 million sent-down youths, being forced to leave home and settle in a harsh and unfamiliar rural environment at very young ages marked a hard transition to adulthood and inevitably disrupted their normal life course. Delayed marriage, as revealed by this study, may be just tip of the iceberg.