The Cultural Revolution and the Timing of First Marriage in China

This paper empirically studies the impact of the exposure to the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) on the timing of first marriage in China. We find that the first marriages of cohorts born in the 1946–1961 period were delayed, on average, by 1.2–2 years. We also find heterogeneous effects across population subgroups because of various historical events such as school closures, the Sent-Down Movement, and class discrimination. People affected by these circumstances showed greater delays in first marriage than those who were not. In addition, women in urban areas faced particularly substantial delays in the timing of first marriage. These findings are robust to different identification strategies and model specifications.