Parents’ influence on children’s marital decision case study: China

Abstract

Problem of a low marriage rate is aggravating nowadays in China. It reached a lowest marriage rate of 5.8‰ in 2021. From previous studies, it has been found that the low marriage rate is caused by the factors including economic level, social liberalization, education level, and so on. However, family, as an important factor on this issue especially in a society like China that abides by Confucius’ filial piety very much, was seldom mentioned. In this paper, a study on how parents’ external conditions affect their children’s attitude toward a marriage relationship and how parents’ own attitudes toward a marriage relationship affect their children’s marriage choices indirectly is carried out based on the dataset of China Family Panel Survey (CFPS) in 2018 and the multiple linear regression and logistic regression models are employed for the purpose. The influences of parents’ marital status, parents’ education level and parent’s financial support on children’s expected marriage age and actual marriage status are investigated. It is hoped that the findings in this study could provide valuable reference for a better understanding of young generation’s attitude toward marriage from a different aspect.

Keywords

• marriage attitude
• parental influence
• children’s marital psychology
• marriage rate
• young generation
• one-child policy