Understanding Hypergamous Marriages of Chinese Rural Women

In China, hypergamy is a socially desirable marriage but an understudied topic. Less has been written on how personal traits and structural factors are intertwined to shape such marriage. Using national-survey data and employing a binary endogenous regressor probit model, this paper investigates three forms of hypergamous marriages: women marrying men from more prosperous families, women marrying men who are more economically established, and women marrying men with an urban hukou. We assess the interaction of ascribed and achieved personal traits with institutional factors in explaining these upward marriages. Particular attention is paid to the role of hukou status in the making of hypergamy. Our results suggest that most of rural women have to stick to endogamy within their socioeconomic category. Ascribed and achieved traits work on marital outcomes in different ways in the changing socioeconomic contexts, mediated by the endogeneity of hukou status conversion. The likelihood of hypergamous marriages of Chinese women is largely constrained by the role of hukou status.