How to Avoid "Unenlightened Sorrow": A Statistical Analysis of Plain Remarriage

This article is a basic quantitative analysis of widowhood and remarriage trends among several Plain churches. When compared to past studies of similar topics, a remarkable consistency of findings across both time and sect can be identified. Bereaved Plain spouses have largely experienced widowhood along separate gender-specific paths, in data sets ranging from 1730 to 2019 and from relatively liberal to traditional communities. Positing that much of Amish and Amish Mennonite society is designed to socialize and retain children, this article offers opportunities for deeper study of the parental roles undergirding that society. The primary research suggestions include spousal function in the context of family life, the various factors influencing the health of bereaved spouses, and the "marriage squeeze" present in many churches. The central data sets used in this study were collected from the 2019 edition of the Amish Mennonite Directory and the 2015 Church Directory of the Lancaster County Amish and Outlying Daughter Settlements. These reference books were sampled on a one-in-five and one-in-three basis, respectively. The resultant widowhood cases were contextualized by widowhood cases from studies by Elmer Lewis Smith and researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Does the Shortage of Marriageable Women Induce the Trafficking of Women for Forced Marriage? Evidence From China

This article examines whether a shortage of marriageable women induces trafficking of women for forced marriage in China as commonly expected. I assemble a data set of 1,215 transactions of women for forced marriage from 2010–2018 using court documents. My analysis suggests that the trafficking of women is not a direct consequence of the local shortage of marriageable women. The fundamental causes are entrenched patriarchal values as indicated by a high local sex ratio at birth, sex-specific internal migration, and the marriage squeeze endured by socially marginalized men in the context of a shortage of women in the population.

Gender Imbalance, Marriage Squeeze and Multiple Biological Clocks: Exploring the Challenges to Intergenerational Contract in North India

This paper maps the impact of gender imbalance on intergenerational relations in north India. It uses the idea of multiple biological clocks to understand the impact that gender imbalance and male marriage squeeze have on two categories of persons: “overage” unmarried sons and their aging parents, and the inter-generational contract between them within the family-household. De-linking the idea of the biological clock from the female body, this paper demonstrates that social understandings of bodily progression are equally significant for men, who, in the Indian context, need to marry by a certain age, and their elderly parents who need to be cared for. In north India, where family-household unit is the most important welfare and security institution for the elderly, disruptions to household formation due to bride shortage caused by sex ratio imbalance, is subjecting families to severe stress. Families with unmarried sons struggle with anxieties centred on the inability to arrange marriages for aging sons, questions of allocation of household labor, the continuation of family line, and lack of care for the elderly. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in north India, this paper explores the tensions and negotiations between elderly parents and unmarried sons concerning the fulfillment (or lack of it) of the intergenerational contract against the backdrop of gender imbalance. It concludes by discussing the various strategies available to families in crisis that involve shame-faced adoption of domestic and care tasks by unmarried sons or bringing cross-region brides who then provide productive, reproductive, and care labour.

Is It Only a Numbers Game? A Macro-Level Study on the Causes of Educational Hypogamy

In many countries, the tendency for highly educated women to marry down in education has markedly increased. Existing research has pointed to an oversupply of highly educated women – i.e., the marriage squeeze against women – as the core reason for this phenomenon. This paper aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the causes of this marriage trend by analyzing over-time census data from 34 countries. Key findings are as follows. First, the degree of educational hypogamy is associated with the magnitude of the college man deficit in the marriage market, which is consistent with the marriage squeeze hypothesis. However, I find evidence that the impact of the mating squeeze significantly differs depending on the group size of college-educated women: the smaller this group (and thus more exclusive), the less they opt for marrying down even if they face a shortage of marriageable men. Second, the degree of educational hypogamy is related to the economic empowerment of college-educated women, even after netting out the mating squeeze effect. Third, counterfactual simulations show that while the mating squeeze is the major driver of educational hypogamy in the majority of the sample countries, the economic empowerment of college-educated women plays an equally important role in several countries.

China’s demographic prospects to 2040 and their implications: an overview

China’s population prospects over the decades ahead are largely shaped by pro-longed sub-replacement childbearing, likely to have been in effect for half a century by 2040. China’s population is on track to peak in the coming decade and to decline at an accelerating pace thereafter. Between 2015 and 2040, China’s population aged 50 and older is on course to increase by roughly one-quarter of a billion people; the under-50 population is set to decline by a roughly comparable magnitude. China is set to experience an extraordinarily rapid surge of population aging, with especially explosive population growth for the 65-plus group, even as its working-age population (conventionally defined as the age 15–64 group) progressively shrinks. Additionally, a number of demographic changes underway now constitute “wild cards” for China’s future: including (1) the impending “marriage squeeze” due to abnormal sex ratios at birth from the one-child policy era; (2) the problem of mass urbanisation under a system that consigns migrants in urban areas to an officially inferior status; and (3) the revolutionary changes in the Chinese family structure, which portend a dramatic departure from previous arrangements on which Chinese society and economy depended.