On the relationship between marriage and population migration in China

Abstract

As a constant and active factor affecting population migration, marriage has long been neglected. This paper brings to light of the social significance of marriage migration and makes an inquiry into its characteristics, patterns and mechanism. It is thought the marriage plays an important role in hastening population migration. While compared with other forms of population migration, marriage migration is distinctive, showing its own characteristics, such as irreversibility in direction, shorter distance, age-long continuity, regional dispersla, gentler fluctuation in number, sexual imbalance, and multiple factors at work. Although the manifestation of marriage migration is complicated, its patterns are clear, that is: pattern 1, women to men’s habitation; pattern 2, men to women’s habitation; and pattern 3, men and women to a third place. It is thought that both the characters and the patterns of marriage migration are determined by its mechanism, because marriage migration is not only a kind of biological action but also a kind of social action, the former of which determines whether it happens, while the latter of which determines how it does. The difference of men’s and women’s social status, that of cities and country, and that of developed and backward areas may result in abnormality of marriage migration, while the socio-biological feedback of sexual imbalance and regional environmental deterioration can give rise to some self-adjusting mechanism. In the end of the paper, based on a sample analysis, it concludes four tendencies towards marriage migration in China: (1) pair-migration is emerging; (2) the changing trend of urban and rural regional relationship of marriage is contrary; (3) urban “island effect” in marriage is weakening; and (4) the potential energy between developed and less developed areas is still strong.