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✪ Li Wenzhen |Chinese School of Society and Population, Renmin University
【Introduction】
Recently, the China Family Planning Association announced the work priorities for 2022, which proposed that special actions for artificial abortion intervention for unmarried people will be carried out, which will arouse public discussion. So, to what extent is the current trend of unmarried pregnancies in the mainland, so that it requires direct intervention from relevant departments?
This paper analyzes 249922 samples across the country, presenting a new trend of unmarried pregnancies among women born since 1957. Overall, studies show that more than 20 percent of Chinese women born since 1957 have had unmarried pregnancies. From the perspective of queues and generations, the younger generation and the generation born after the reform and opening up have more unmarried pregnancies, and the proportion of women aged 20 and above has increased rapidly. Of particular interest is the fact that 33.1 percent of women born in 1986 in the sample had unmarried pregnancies, or 1 in 3 who had had an unmarried pregnancy. But at the same time, unmarried pregnancies still have a high marriage conversion rate in the mainland, with nearly 60% of "married with pregnancy" and nearly 70% having children within marriage; compared with OECD countries, China is still among the few countries with the lowest proportion of non-marital births.
Although they belong to the same Confucian cultural circle, the proportion of chinese women having children out of wedlock is slightly higher than that of Japan and South Korea, and the overall level is closer to that of Greece and Turkey.
The authors point out that as a consequence of liberalism, individualism, and sexual liberation, unmarried pregnancies do have an increasing trend in China, and are shifting from "concerned adolescent issues" to a group choice with a high universality.
However, the high proportion of births within marriage shows that unlike the weakening or even rupture of the "marriage-probement" relationship in European and American societies, the link between "marriage and procreation" has not been broken in China's modern demographic transition. Under the powerful role of the "family" culture, most unmarried pregnancies translate into marital births. Pregnancy can be a premarital behavior, an individual behavior, but childbirth is still a marital behavior, a family behavior. Unmarried cohabitation and unmarried pregnancy are only a plurality of choices before formal marriage, becoming an intermediate or transitional form of transition to marriage and childbearing, rather than a substitute form.
This article was originally published in the Journal of Demography, No. 6, 2020, originally titled "New Trends in Marriage and Pregnancy among Women Born Since 1957: An Analysis Centered on Unmarried Pregnancy".
Represents only the author's own views and is for the reader's consideration.
New trends in marriage and pregnancy among women born since 1957
——An analysis centered on unmarried pregnancies
Since the reform and opening up, with the retreat of ascetic culture, the individualistic orientation of sexual concepts and sexual behavior has gradually had an impact on Chinese society, people's sexual concepts have moved towards openness and tolerance, and unmarried sexual behavior has become more frequent. Nevertheless, in early studies, it was found that as a result of unmarried sex, women mostly choose to miscarry after becoming pregnant unmarried.
However, with the further deepening of marketization, urbanization and modernization, the above trend is changing. In daily life, people's perception of the phenomenon of unmarried pregnancy is shifting from seeing it as "deviant behavior" to "understanding" and "nothing".
In the international context, as expected by the theory of the second demographic transition, unmarried cohabitation becomes one of the alternatives to the family as a form of relationship. Non-marital childbearing, which accompanies non-marital cohabitation, has become one of the important sources of fertility for the population in European and American societies, and the connection between marriage and childbearing has been broken. In the era of globalization, on the one hand, this phenomenon provides a conceptual background for unmarried cohabitation and unmarried pregnancy in Chinese society; on the other hand, what Liang Shuming and others call China's "ethical-based society" and Confucian culture are characterized by another cultural background with a binding nature.
In the context of this difference in concepts, when China is placed in the context of reform and opening up, market economy, and modernization process, will the collision of traditional marriage and pregnancy concepts and modern concepts lead to some unique characteristics of Chinese women's marriage and pregnancy? Compared with the previous Chinese premarital sex behavior, that is, the relationship between marriage and sex has been broken into the focus of research, in this context, unmarried pregnancy as an important phenomenon that can be used to examine the relationship between sex, marriage, and childbearing, what kind of changes have taken place? What are the characteristics and patterns? Will unmarried childbearing become an important supplement to marital childbearing? Are Chinese and European and American societies showing the same changes in marriage and childbearing patterns described by post-demographic shifts? This article will first analyze the unmarried pregnancies of women born between 1957 and 2002 from the late 1970s to 2017 for more than 40 years, then compare the unmarried births in OECD countries, and finally discuss the differences between China and Western countries in the second demographic transition between marriage and childbearing relationships, so as to provide more reference for understanding the changes in the trend of marriage and pregnancy among Chinese women.
▍ Literature review
The current literature on unmarried pregnancy in Chinese academic circles mainly focuses on the relationship between the basic conditions, characteristics and marriage and childbearing patterns of unmarried pregnancy, and some influencing factors of unmarried pregnancy are also analyzed.
In the study of the overall status of unmarried pregnancies, the academic community's estimation of the proportion of unmarried pregnancies varies greatly. Due to the different groups under consideration, the distribution range of this proportion is estimated to be around 5% to 40%. Studies of unmarried adolescents alone show that the incidence of unmarried pregnancies is less than 5%. But unmarried pregnancies occur at a higher rate among married populations in large cities of all ages. Xu Li's study of seven provinces and cities found that the proportion of premarital pregnancies in the marriage queue from 1987 to 1991 reached 16.8%. But these are still not the same as the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among migrant groups after the first 10 years of the 21st century. In 2013, the proportion of unmarried and first-born pregnant couples aged 15-59 nationwide was as high as 30.5%, and the 2011 survey also found that the proportion of married and children born after 1980 among the new generation of migrant workers with children was as high as 42.7% of them had their first pregnancy before marriage.
In terms of the age characteristics of unmarried pregnancy, the married group in large cities and the floating population group in the country have shown that the younger birth cohort is more likely to have unmarried pregnancies than the older birth cohort, and some studies believe that the peak age of unmarried pregnancy is about 20 years old, and some studies believe that unmarried pregnancy has a clear "younger age" trend.
In the relationship between sex, marriage and procreation, more research focuses on sexual concepts and sexual behavior. Liu Wenrong's research believes that the attitude of Chinese rural society to sex is still at a highly consistent low tolerance level, and Wu Wei's research believes that the sexual concept of the post-70s, 80s and 90s groups has moved towards openness and tolerance, but as a whole it is still conservative, and the attitudes of cities are relatively diverse. Research on unmarried pregnancies and unmarried cohabitation is also increasing. For example, a survey of local areas found that premarital cohabitation and unmarried pregnancy are more common phenomena among urban and rural residents in local areas. Other studies have pointed out that cohabitation is a kind of "trial marriage" and a prelude to marriage.
There are also a small number of studies in the field of public health that focus on unmarried childbearing. Some researchers have surveyed married women in Guangxi Laibin, Foshan, Shenzhen Longhua New Area and other places, or married women who participated in marriage examinations, and found that the proportion of unmarried children in these women is between 10% and 17%. However, the place where these surveys occur has certain particularities, such as the majority of the Laibin Zhuang population in Guangxi, while Foshan and Shenzhen are all areas with a large floating population, and the performance of unmarried births may differ from that of the whole country.
Studies on local areas and local groups have shown that the probability of unmarried pregnancy in young birth cohorts is higher, and unmarried pregnancies in different generations have also increased over time, so is this trend really present for Chinese women as a whole? Previous studies have paid less attention to the transformational status between unmarried pregnancy and unmarried childbearing, with only a few studies of specific regions, making it difficult to infer the national situation from this basis.
This paper will use the reproductive history review data of the "2017 National Fertility Sample Survey" to learn more about the unmarried pregnancy status of women born in China from 1957 to 2002 and the transformation between unmarried pregnancy and marriage and childbearing, and make an international comparison of the status of unmarried births to determine whether China, which is in the process of modernization, has the same characteristics of marriage and childbearing relationships as the "second demographic transformation".
▍ Definitions and data
There are different names for the word unmarried pregnancy, some use unmarried pregnancy, some use premarital pregnancy, from the connotation of the expression of the same meaning. However, as Chinese women continue to postpone marriage, the possibility of non-marriage is also increasing, and marriage may not necessarily be a necessary option in a woman's life. With this in mind, this article uses unmarried pregnancy to express the concept, not the words "first" or "before", but the connotation is still the same.
Unmarried pregnancy in this article refers to pregnancy events in women who have not had a marital event. Unmarried pregnancy mainly includes two parts: one is the unmarried pregnancy incident that occurs in the current unmarried group, and the other is the unmarried pregnancy event that is unmarried at the time of pregnancy and is now married or once married. The status of unmarried pregnancies in the married and formerly married groups needs to be judged by borrowing the time of occurrence of two events, that is, the time of first marriage and the end of pregnancy. Considering the low proportion of preterm births of less than 32 weeks of gestation and the avoidance of overestimation, this paper follows the assumption that Li Ding and Xu Li generally have a pregnancy cycle of 8 months, and defines unmarried pregnancy as follows: pregnancy in the unmarried group; in the married or married group, the pregnancy result is live birth, and the time to end the pregnancy minus the time of the first marriage is less than 8 months; in the married or former married group, the pregnancy result is non-live birth, and the end of pregnancy is earlier than the time of first marriage.
The data of the "2017 National Fertility Status Sampling Survey" is a special fertility survey data representative of the whole country organized by the former National Health and Family Planning Commission, which surveyed women aged 15-60 at 00:00 on July 1, 2017, that is, born between 1957 and 2002, and the survey sample was 249 946 people. The survey provides a review of the fertility history of women born between 1957 and 2002, and most women born in the late 1950s had marital and childbearing behavior in the late 1970s and early 1980s, so the survey's reproductive history review can reflect the unmarried pregnancies of Chinese women between the late 1970s and 2017 for more than 40 years. Comparing the age structure of the female population at the end of 2017 in the 2018 China Statistical Yearbook, the two are basically the same in age composition, but the proportion shown in the statistical yearbook of the 25-29 age group is slightly higher than the survey proportion by 1%, and the sample survey in the 55-59 age group in 2017 is 2 percentage points higher than the statistical yearbook, and this difference has a smaller impact. The age of menarche in women is generally as early as 12 years, so cases of first pregnancy age less than 12 years were deleted in the calculations and a valid sample of 249 922 were obtained.
▍Characteristics and trends of unmarried pregnancies of Chinese women born between 1957 and 2002
1. 20% of women aged 15-60 have had unmarried pregnancies
According to the marital status, pregnancy or not, pregnancy time, and first marriage time, the previous pregnancy status of all women can be divided into five categories: unmarried pregnancy, pregnancy after marriage, not pregnant, and although pregnant, it is impossible to judge whether it is unmarried or not, and it is impossible to judge whether it is pregnant. The inability to determine whether there is an unmarried pregnancy refers to the fact that in the married group, although pregnancy was reported, the pregnancy result was non-live birth, and the end time of pregnancy was less than 7 months away from the time of first marriage; the time of pregnancy end and the start of first marriage were not reported. Inability to determine pregnancy refers to the fact that unmarried (cohabitants) reported pregnancy in the survey, but the number of pregnancies so far is 0 and the pregnancy history has not been answered, and it is impossible to determine whether they have been pregnant. In addition, if the number of pregnancies and the end of pregnancy were reported in the survey, but the answer to the question "Have you ever been pregnant" is "no", the correction is whether you are pregnant and you are judging whether you are pregnant unmarried1. The weighted statistics are shown in table 1.
Table 1 Pregnancy status of respondents aged 15-60 in 2017
The data shows that of the 249,922 female respondents aged 15-60 in 2017, or between 1957 and 2002, 21.5% of women who had at least one unmarried pregnancy. Of these unmarried pregnant people who had traditionally "deviant behavior," 91.9 percent were married at the time of the survey, and only 8.1 percent were not or had not entered into a marriage at the time of the survey. This has a lot to do with the cultural concept of universal marriage in Chinese society.
Unmarried women aged 15-60 account for 22 per cent and unmarried pregnancies occur in 7.9 per cent of these unmarried. Women were (formerly) married, of which 25.3 per cent had unmarried pregnancies and 69.9 per cent had their first pregnancy after marriage. The proportion of unmarried pregnancies occurring among (formerly) married women is higher than that of currently unmarried women. The proportion of unmarried pregnancies among (former) married women was higher than Xu Li's inference of data from the 1992 Survey of Married Women in Seven Provinces and Cities in China, inferring that the proportion of unmarried pregnancies occurred in the cohort of marriages from 1987 to 1991. This shows that at least in the married population, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies has increased over time.
In order to compare with the research results of Li Ding, Qi Jianan, etc., this paper also calculates the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among migrant women. The results showed that the occurrence of unmarried pregnancies among migrant women was 6 percentage points higher than that of registered women. This is consistent with the findings of existing studies. In terms of specific values, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among migrant women calculated in this paper is 28.7%; Li Ding used the 2011 floating population monitoring data to calculate that the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among migrant women was 28.1%, 28.9% in 2013, and 30.6% in 2015; Qi Jiannan and Yang Hua used wide caliber to calculate that the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among migrant women in 2013 was 30.5%. These extrapolations suggest that the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among migrant women in 2017 was at least between 28.7% and 30%. Over time, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies has shown an upward trend among migrant women.
2. The younger generation and the generation born after the reform and opening up have more unmarried pregnancies
It is generally believed that 50-year-old women have completed their pregnancy behavior, so when examining the pregnancy of women aged 15-60 years by age, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies of 50-year-old women (born in 1967) is also used as a baseline for comparison (see figure 1).
Figure 1 Pregnancy status of women aged 15-60 years by age
As can be seen from Figure 2, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies in the group over 31 years of age increases with the rejuvenation of generations.
Figure 2 Age composition of unmarried first pregnancy
Note: The two generations born from 1985 to 1989 and after 1990 are still in the period of pregnancy and fertility, and the proportion of unmarried first pregnancies in the lower age group will continue to decrease with the increase in the number of unmarried pregnancies at higher ages
There are four distinct ranges in the proportion of unmarried pregnancies: in the first range, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among women aged 15-25 years is rising but still lower than that of women aged 50 years; in the second range, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among women aged 26-38 years has exceeded that of women aged 50 years; in the third range, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among women aged 39-52 fluctuates around the level of the 50-year-old pregnancy rate; and in the fourth range, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies among women aged 53-60 years is below the 50-year-old level.
In terms of age, women in the second range are in the period of pregnancy and fertility, and the proportion of unmarried pregnancies before the end of the fertility age is still likely to continue to rise. The proportion of unmarried pregnancies among younger generations in this range has exceeded that of older generations aged 50 and older.
From the perspective of the characteristics of the times, the fourth group has the lowest proportion of unmarried pregnancies, the group in this range was born between 1956 and 1965, and the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China was promulgated in 1950, which stipulates the abolition of the feudal marriage system of arranged forced marriage, the implementation of the autonomy of marriage between men and women, monogamy, equal rights of men and women, and the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of women and children. Ideological concepts have been liberated to a certain extent from the old shackles, and the gradual popularization of subjective ideas may be the most important reason for the slow rise in the proportion of unmarried pregnancies at that time. But in general, the social concept at that time was still an ascetic, collectivist period of suppression of individualism, so the proportion of unmarried pregnancies was the lowest.
The third range covers the group born during the turbulent decade, and the proportion of unmarried pregnancies fluctuates around 23.6%, showing no clear upward and downward trend. Extrapolating that the turmoil of the social environment may have made the generation born during this period more inclined to survive and self-preservation, so the proportion of unmarried pregnancies did not maintain the upward momentum of the fourth range.
The women of the second range were born between 1979 and 1991 as a group born after the reform and opening up, which grew up completely in the environment of reform and opening up and the market economy, and experienced the introduction of economic take-off, the concept of freedom, individualism and the concept of sexual liberation. This is the largest social background for the high proportion of unmarried pregnancies in the second range.
Of particular note is the highest proportion of unmarried pregnancies among women born in 1986 at 33.1 per cent. That is, 1 in 3 women born in 1986 has had an unmarried pregnancy. Considering that 31-year-old women are still in the period of pregnancy and fertility, and there are still no pregnancies and no children at the time of the survey, the proportion of women who are now 31 years old may be more likely to have unmarried pregnancies after the age of 50 than the current 33%. Similarly, it is now impossible to determine which age group of women aged 15-31 had the highest proportion of unmarried pregnancies by the end of the marriage and childbearing period at the time of the survey.
Women in the first range were also born after the reform and opening up, but due to the extension of the number of years of education, most women aged 15-25 are still educated in school, and most of them have not considered pregnancy or childbirth, so the proportion of unmarried pregnancies at the time of the survey is still relatively low.
As can be seen from Figure 2, even in the generation over the age of 40, the gap between unmarried pregnancies and postmarital pregnancies is getting smaller and smaller as the generations are younger. With the rejuvenation of generations, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies increases, and the proportion of pregnancies after marriage decreases, but the overall proportion of pregnancies also decreases slightly, and the proportion of those who have never been pregnant is increasing.
3. Age composition of unmarried first pregnancy: the proportion of women under 20 years old rises first and then decreases, and the proportion of women aged 20 and above increases rapidly
According to the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China (1980), 22 years for males and 20 years for females are the legal age of marriage. In other words, the law recognizes that a 20-year-old woman has the legitimacy of the time of marriage and conception. According to this provision, this article divides the age group at the time of the first unmarried pregnancy as: 12-19 years old, 20-24 years old, 25-29 years old, 30-34 years old, 35 years old and above.
In previous studies, there has been a literature that there is a tendency for unmarried pregnancies to be "younger". The analysis of the age group in which women's unmarried first pregnancies occur in this paper finds that the proportion of unmarried first pregnancies in the low age group of 12-19 years old has experienced a first rise and then a decrease, especially in the birth cohort after 1970, the proportion of unmarried first pregnancies in the low age group continues to decrease, and the proportion of unmarried first pregnancies occurs rapidly at the age of 20 and later (especially after 25 years and later).
Excluding post-90s women who are still in the period of pregnancy and fertility, unmarried pregnancies in the lower age group of 12-19 years old after 80 and older have experienced a trend of rising first and then falling with the passage of birth time. Women born in 1980-1984, who were close to the completion of their fertility period, had the lowest proportion of unmarried pregnancies aged 12-19 (18.6 per cent), 8 percentage points lower than the proportion between 1965 and 1969, and 81.4 per cent of unmarried pregnancies occurred at the age of 20 and over.
The age of 20 years or older becomes the age subject at the time of unmarried first pregnancy. Figure 2 shows that the proportion of unmarried pregnancies aged 20 years and over in the cohort of births since 1970 continues to rise.
Among the proportion of unmarried pregnancies aged 20 and over, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies that occur at the age of 25-29 shows a clear upward trend. The proportion of unmarried pregnancies occurring at the age of 25-29 in the 1965-1969 birth cohort was 7.4 per cent, but in the 1980-1984 birth cohort, the proportion increased sharply to 20 per cent, nearly twice as high as the former. The proportion of unmarried pregnancies that occur at the age of 30-34 has also increased. The proportion was 1.1 per cent in the pre-1964 birth generation and increased to 3.3 per cent in the birth cohort in 1975-1979.
The age of 20 has long passed the age of adulthood, which can exclude the lack of understanding of contraceptive methods in young children, and the rapid increase in the proportion of unmarried pregnancies aged 20 and above in the cohort of births in 1970 and later is unlikely to be unconscious behavior. More unexpectedly, in the birth cohort between 1956 and 1964, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies aged 20 years and older was higher than that of the two birth cohorts in 1965-1969 and 1970-1974. It is speculated that there are two reasons, one is that due to the ascetic social culture at that time, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies between the ages of 12 and 19 was originally low; second, related to the change in marriage policy, the mainland implemented the "late, rare, and less" policy in the 1970s. This policy promotes late marriage and encourages men and women to marry after the age of 25 and 23, respectively. At that time, marriage required the approval of the unit, and many units only approved the marriage of people who met the criteria of late marriage. Until the revision of the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China in 1980, it was stipulated that marriage could be obtained as long as the legal requirements were met, and men could not be older than 22 years old and women should not be earlier than 20 years old. Calculating the start time of first marriage (cohabitation) among women in different birth cohorts also found (see Table 2) that the unmarried cohabitation age and first marriage age of birth groups in 1964 and before were significantly higher than those in the birth cohort from 1965 to 1969. Thus, between 1970 and 1980 there may have been a large number of young men and women who had intended to marry but were still awaiting approval. Unmarried first pregnancies that occur during this period are on the high side of age.
Table 2 Age status of first marriage (unmarried cohabitation) in different birth cohorts
4. The average age of first pregnancy after marriage and the age of first pregnancy after marriage are constantly postponed
From a yearly point of view, with the development of the times, the average unmarried first pregnancy age and the average post-marriage first pregnancy age are postponed, and the average post-marriage first pregnancy age is delayed by the average unmarried first pregnancy age.
Figure 3 depicts the average age at the time of unmarried first pregnancy and postmarital pregnancy among women aged 15-49 in each year from 2006 to 2016.
Figure 3 Average age of unmarried first pregnancy and first pregnancy after marriage for women aged 15-49 years from 2006 to 2016
The average unmarried first-trimester age in 2006-2016 rose rapidly after a period of stabilization in 2006-2010, and by 2016, it had been delayed by nearly one year to 22.73 years in 6 years.
The average post-marital first pregnancy age also experienced a period of stabilization between 24 and 24.3 years in 2006-2010, and then experienced a rapid rise, delaying by 1.89 years to 25.94 years in 6 years.
The difference between the average age of first pregnancy after marriage and the average age of first pregnancy after marriage is also widening. The age difference between the two widened from 2.27 to 3.21 years in 11 years.
The postponement of the average unmarried first pregnancy age and the average post-marriage first pregnancy age reflects the general delay in the reproductive age of women of childbearing age in China. In the context of the general delay in childbearing in women, the delay in the age of first pregnancy after marriage is even greater.
5. Multiple unmarried pregnancies are significantly reduced
Due to the concern for women's physical and mental health, multiple unmarried pregnancies are also areas of concern for unmarried pregnancies. The survey found a decrease in multiple recurrences of unmarried pregnancies, while an increase in unmarried pregnancies occurred only once. The younger the generation, the more pronounced the trend.
As figure 4 shows, as generations age, the average number of unmarried pregnancies gradually decreases in the group where unmarried pregnancies have occurred. Unmarried pregnancies occurred on average 1.48 in the 1964 and previous birth groups, and the average number of unmarried pregnancies among women with unmarried pregnancies in the birth cohort in 1980-1984 was 1.288, a decrease of 13.2%.
Figure 4 Composition of unmarried pregnancies among unmarried pregnant women in different birth cohorts
Among the women who had had an unmarried pregnancy, 78.7% had only had one unmarried pregnancy, and 13.96% had had two unmarried pregnancies, and the two accounted for 92.7% in total.
The proportion of multiple unmarried pregnancies with more than 2 times decreased. According to different birth cohorts, the incidence of unmarried pregnancies with 3, 4 and more pregnancies decreased significantly, and the proportion of unmarried pregnancies with 4 or more pregnancies fell from 5.67% of the birth group in 1964 and before to 1.84% of the birth cohort in 1980-1984, a decrease of 67%. The incidence of 3 unmarried pregnancies also declined, from 7.17 per cent of the birth cohort in 1964 and before to 4.04 per cent in the birth cohort in 1980-1984, a decrease of 43 per cent.
The rise is the proportion of only one unmarried pregnancy, which rose from 74.12 per cent of the pre-1964 birth cohort to 79.95 per cent of the birth cohort in 1980-1984.
The decline in the proportion of multiple unmarried pregnancies is closely related, on the one hand, to the decline in the number of children with higher births, and to the widespread use of contraceptives on the other.
▍Transformation between cohabitation, pregnancy and marriage, and childbirth
In the description of the theory of the second demographic transition and the actual evolution of Western society, cohabitation has become one of the alternative forms of marriage, the relationship between marriage and procreation has been broken, and extramarital childbearing has appeared in large numbers, becoming an important or even main source of fertility. However, among women born in China since 1957, unmarried pregnancies and unmarried births show characteristics that are similar to Western societies but have obvious differences.
1. "Cohabitation-pregnancy-fertility" relationship: cohabitation is accompanied by high unmarried pregnancy rates and high live birth rates
As has been pointed out in previous studies, cohabitation is a kind of "trial marriage", which sneaks into marriage without legal recognition. Cohabitation makes women in cohabiting relationships completely exposed to the risk of pregnancy, greatly increasing the likelihood of pregnancy. Unmarried cohabitation also better guarantees the active breeding behavior.
In the state of unmarried cohabitation, what is the probability of unmarried pregnancy? Figure 5 shows that more than 90% (92.6%) of unmarried cohabitants have become pregnant unmarried, compared with only 2.7% of unmarried (uncohabiting) people.
Figure 5 Marital status and pregnancy
The likelihood of unmarried first-born live births in unmarried cohabitation has also increased dramatically. Pregnancies in the unmarried (non-cohabiting) state have a pregnancy result of 70% of live births, unmarried cohabitants have a pregnancy result of live birth of 93.4%, and of all pregnancies after marriage, live births account for 96.3%. Unmarried cohabitation provides unmarried pregnancies with fertility outcomes that are closer to pregnancies after marriage in a marital state.
The proportion of unmarried (non-cohabiting) pregnant women reached 25.7 per cent, and the proportion of abortions exceeded that of all other marital states. Consider that there may be unmarried (non-cohabiting) pregnant women who do not report pregnancy and miscarriage, and the proportion of induced abortions may be higher.
2. "Pregnancy-marriage-childbearing" relationship: unmarried pregnancy is accompanied by higher intramarital childbearing
In order to investigate the relationship between pregnancy, childbirth and marriage, this paper calculates four cases of unmarried pregnancy in (former) married people according to the birth results (live birth, non-live birth) of unmarried pregnant people who have occurred in (previous) marriages, and the time interval between the end of pregnancy and marriage: (1) marriage with pregnancy. Marriage after unmarried pregnancy, after marriage to produce a child is pregnant marriage, such as the first unmarried pregnancy after the pregnancy marriage and the first or multiple unmarried pregnancies are aborted, the first live birth is caused by unmarried pregnancy but the live birth occurred after the marriage event. (2) Mr. Marries after childbearing. Refers to not only unmarried pregnancies, but also unmarried live births. (3) Miscarriage before marriage, pregnancy and childbirth after marriage. Refers to miscarriage after unmarried pregnancy, and the first live birth is a pregnancy after marriage and a childbirth after marriage. (4) Unmarried pregnancies in which it is impossible to judge the order of childbirth and marriage.
Both (1) and (3) are unmarried pregnancies, but the first childbirth still occurs during marriage.
The investigation found that unmarried pregnancies were made, but the first childbirth was a case of marital birth accounting for nearly 70%. Among them, 59.64% contributed to marriage with pregnancy, and 7.17% contributed to those who miscarried after unmarried pregnancy and did not have children, then married and became pregnant after marriage. The total of the two is 66.81%.
There are also two cases in marriage with pregnancy. One is to marry with pregnancy at the time of first pregnancy, contributing 56.19% of the 59.64%, and another 3.45% is to get pregnant again after the first (multiple) unmarried pregnancy miscarriage and get pregnant. The first type of marriage is to marry with pregnancy, according to the traditional concept of Chinese, the partner who marries at this time is very likely to be the partner at the time of the unmarried pregnancy. There are two possibilities, the first is that in the case of pregnancy, a previously unspecified marriage event is on the agenda; the second possibility is that the partners have an original intention to marry, and pregnancy is not considered unplanned. Either way, unmarried pregnancy events catalyzed marital events. The second type of pregnancy marriage includes the situation of marital miscarriage after the first pregnancy, and the marriage partner and the partner who first became pregnant may not be the same person.
Another 32.24% of unmarried pregnancies are converted into unmarried pregnancies, in this part of the unmarried pregnancies, the child before the age of 1 into marriage accounted for 30%, it is more difficult to judge this part of the unmarried pregnant with children under the age of 1 year old, the identity of the partner, there is also a certain possibility of unmarried first pregnancy partner.
Table 3 Childbearing-marriage intervals for unmarried pregnant people among (former) married
Note: The childbearing-marriage interval is based on the end of pregnancy minus the year of the beginning of the first marriage. Cases of uncertainty about pregnancy accounted for 2.8% of the total number of pregnancies, which were omitted and not counted
Although there are great differences between marriage with pregnancy and premarital abortion, pregnancy and childbirth after marriage, the logic behind both is the same as that of marital birth, that is, childbirth occurs after the marriage event, the birth behavior still appears in the marriage, and the children who give birth for the first time are still in the traditional family order. For Chinese, "home" is the core node of the social order in traditional Chinese culture, and people obtain the original and most important social identity through "home". Raising children and passing on is the most important purpose and task of the "family", in which case social and cultural traditions can prompt unmarried pregnancies to be transformed into unmarried births.
The influence of this culture and tradition is so greatly different from Western societies that, as in the case of the United States mentioned above, the National Center for Health Statistics's 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth showed that 18 percent of unmarried pregnancies developed into unmarried cohabitation before the birth of a child, and 5 percent developed into marriage. The gap between conversion rates and China's conversion rates is huge.
3. Composition of live births: unmarried births account for less than 9% of all live births
In the second demographic shift in Western societies, out-of-wedlock fertility was an important, if not a major, source of fertility. The situation in China is different.
According to the marital status at the time of the occurrence of the previous pregnancies, the time between the end of pregnancy and the interval between marriage and the live birth, this paper identifies five situations in which the previous pregnancies are unmarried and have children: (1) all live births in the unmarried state are unmarried births; (2) in (previous) marriage, pregnancy results are live births, pregnancy end time is earlier than the time of the first marriage, for premarital birth; (3) in (previous) marriage, pregnancy results are live births, pregnancy end time minus the time of first marriage is greater than 0 but less than 8 months, it is intramarital birth with pregnancy ;(4) In (previous) marriage, pregnancy result is live birth, pregnancy end time minus the time of first marriage is greater than or equal to 8 months, pregnancy and childbirth after marriage; (5) in (previous) marriage, pregnancy result is live birth, but the lack of pregnancy end time or first marriage time is classified into the category of impossible to judge.
(1) and (2) are both births that occur when they are unmarried, and (3) and (4) are both born within marriage.
Calculations found that of all 396,022 live births, births occurred unmarried in 8.96 per cent of all live births, live births were intramarital births accounted for 91.02 per cent and another 0.01 per cent could not be judged whether they had children in marriage.
Figure 6 Unmarried birth status in live births for women aged 15-60 years
Note: Total number of live births = 396 022.
Less than 9% of unmarried births contributed 2.73% to unmarried births at the time of the survey, and 6.23% to unmarried births of those who were (formerly) married at the time of the survey.
The number of live births in the first three pregnancies accounted for 92% of all live births. Among the first three live births, the proportion of unmarried births in the first pregnancy is the highest, about 10.8%, and the proportion of unmarried births in the second and third pregnancies in the number of live births drops to 7% or less.
Figure 7 Proportion of unmarried births in live births among women aged 15-49 years, 2006-2016
Note: Total number of live births = 106 463.
On a yearly basis, the peak incidence of unmarried births among all live births occurred in 2009, with unmarried births accounting for 10.4% of all births that year, and since then it has decreased year by year, with unmarried births accounting for 4.3% of the total number of births in 2016.
The decline in unmarried births since 2009 is closely related to the decline in the one-child fertility rate in recent years, as shown in Figure 7, 50% of unmarried births are one-child births, and the decline in one-child births caused by late marriage and delayed births has also affected the decline in unmarried births year by year.
4. Comparison of the non-marital birth status of China with major OECD countries
In order to examine the relative status of China's unmarried births in the world environment, this paper compares the situation of unmarried births in major OECD countries. The economic and social development of OECD countries started earlier, relatively speaking, the level of socio-economic development is relatively higher, and their major countries are more likely to show the characteristics of changes in marriage and reproductive relations in the second demographic transition.
The distribution of the proportion of non-marital births in OECD countries varies greatly, and the first group of countries represented by Chile, the five Nordic countries and France has a proportion of more than 50% of non-marital births, which means that more than half of the children born in 2016 are children born out of wedlock. Chile in South America has the highest proportion of births out of wedlock in the world, accounting for 72.7% of all births in 2016.
The second category is Western European countries and the United States, britain, Germany and other old developed economies as the representative of the country, the proportion of non-marital births are between 30% and 50%.
The third category is the countries in transition that emerged from the drastic changes in Eastern Europe. After entering 2000, the proportion of out-of-wedlock births has soared all the way to more than 30%, and Slovenia and other countries have soared to more than 50%.
The fourth category is countries with less than 30% of births out of wedlock in 2016, and some are countries with strong religious influences, such as Poland, Switzerland, Greece, and Turkey. The exception is Italy, which in the mid-1980s saw major changes in secularization, with the proportion of unmarried births rising rapidly after 2000, already exceeding 20 per cent. The other part is Japan and South Korea, which also belong to the Confucian cultural circle, and the proportion of unmarried births is less than 10%. The fourth category of countries generally falls under a situation where the proportion of births out of wedlock has a low starting point and a very slow growth rate. The proportion of non-marital births increased by less than 5 per cent in the 20 years from 1960 to 1980, and although the proportion of non-marital births increased after 2000, the increase was still small. Judging from the changes in the past 50 years, the proportion of unmarried births in Confucian cultural circles has risen significantly lower than that in Poland and Switzerland.
Figure 8 Changes in the proportion of out-of-wedlock births in OECD countries and China in the main years of 1960-2016
Figure 9 OECD countries and China with a proportion of children born out of wedlock below 25% from 1960 to 2016
China is also among the countries with the lowest proportion of births out of wedlock. However, although they belong to the same Confucian cultural circle, the proportion of Chinese women having children out of wedlock is slightly higher than that of Japan and South Korea, and the overall level is closer to that of Greece and Turkey.
▍ Discussion: The "sex-marriage-procreation" relationship model of Chinese women
1. The high incidence of unmarried pregnancies reveals further separation of "sex-marriage" relationships
As previously analyzed, the further separation of women's "sex-marriage" relationships in China has become a significant trend. This is not only manifested in premarital sex, but also further developed and manifested in more than 20% of China's 15-60-year-old female population has had unmarried pregnancies, and the younger generation has more unmarried pregnancies.
Unmarried pregnancies occurring in adult women over the age of 20 increased rapidly and multiple unmarried pregnancies decreased significantly compared to earlier studies when unmarried pregnancies were seen as "deviant" behavior and occurred more often in adolescents. It shows that most unmarried pregnancies are not unconscious behaviors, but that women's concepts of marriage and sex have changed, and do not strictly follow the traditional "marriage-sex" chronological order. Especially among women born after the reform and opening up, the sharp increase in the proportion of unmarried pregnancies shows that with the reform and opening up and the implementation of the market economy, the concept of individualism has affected people's concepts of sex and marriage, which is consistent with what is described in the second demographic transformation.
Unmarried cohabitation behavior in Chinese women is accompanied by a very high incidence of unmarried pregnancy, unmarried pregnancy in unmarried cohabitation also has a very high proportion of live births, less abortion behavior, but also played a role similar to the form of marriage, but yu Jia, Xie Yu according to the CFPS survey data found that in China, regardless of men and women, the average duration of each unmarried cohabitation is less than 11 months, the time is short, is a "trial marriage" behavior and the prelude to marriage, and is not a substitute for traditional marriage forms. The reality described in the second demographic transition and in Western societies is that non-marital cohabitation has been going on for a long time, has the attributes of a form of marriage, and has become an alternative to the form of marriage, and the situation in China is obviously different.
2. The high rate of births within marriage reveals that the "marriage-procreation" link has not been broken
The most important reason why traditional forms of marriage cannot be replaced is that the "marriage-procreation" link is still relatively strong. On the one hand, nearly 70% of women who have had unmarried pregnancies have their first births in marriage. Although this part of the women broke the inherent order between "marriage and sex", they still followed the traditional concept of "marrying first and having children later" when facing childbearing, ensuring that their firstborn children were born in marriage.
On the other hand, more than 90 per cent of all live births are born in marriage, with unmarried births accounting for less than 9 per cent of all live births. On a yearly basis, against the backdrop of a decline in the one-child rate in recent years, the proportion of unmarried births per year to all live births since 2010 has been below this overall level.
Compared with the situation of unmarried births in OECD countries, whether it is compared with the Nordic countries, Western European countries, Eastern European countries in transition after the drastic changes, or countries with a strong religious atmosphere, the proportion of unmarried births in China is at a very low level. It is between Japan, South Korea and Turkey and Greece, which have the lowest proportions.
3. Variations of the "Second Demographic Transition" on the foundation of the traditional concept of "home": the partial emancipation of the sexual-marriage-procreation relationship
The rising proportion of unmarried pregnancies shows the increasingly open and free sexual concept of Chinese women, revealing that Chinese society is also showing some characteristics of the second demographic transformation, the order of "marriage-sex" has been broken, but the rupture of the "marriage-childbirth" relationship described by the second demographic transformation, as well as the weakening or even replacement of traditional marriage forms, may not appear, and childbearing still has important special significance for Chinese families and society, making "marriage-procreation" Relationships still follow the traditional order.
Fei Xiaotong's interpretation of "the meaning of marriage ... is to establish dual-line parenting" from the functional point of view indicates the functional significance of marriage to procreation. In a society that is constantly infiltrated by modernity, the functional significance of ensuring marriage for procreation is attributed to the traditional Chinese concept of "home" and the core node position of "home" in China's social order.
According to the analysis of Jin Yaoji, Liang Shuming, and others, in the mainstream Chinese cultural thinking of "self-cultivation and family governance of the country and the world", "home" is a node connecting self-cultivation and governing the country and the world, "governing the country" is an ideal for individuals, "self-cultivation" mainly depends on self-discipline, "home" has community characteristics, and the forces within the community make the norms and constraints of the "family" ethics operable in practice.
Therefore, the "home" is endowed with many functions. "Home" is an important order that constitutes the country and society. Individuals acquire identity in the "home" and thus social order. From birth, the individual is placed in the corresponding position in the "home", thus obtaining a certain position in the social system. After the individual dies, he enters a certain position in the "Jongmyo Temple". Even in modern times, the specific form of the temple has declined, but its meaning core and cultural abstraction still exist.
Although procreation is still an act that occurs in individuals, its significance has long exceeded the scope of individuals, couples and even small families, and procreation is not only reproduction, but also has the function of inheriting the ancestors and enlightening the future.
From this perspective, the idea of individualism and liberalization can influence people's behavior at the individual level, such as sexual behavior and pregnancy, but when it comes to childbearing, it goes beyond the individual meaning and becomes a decision in the field of "home". Whether it is the concept of "giving the child a complete home" and "recognizing the ancestors and returning to the ancestors", or the face concept of "the child is reborn after marriage", or the unmarried pregnancy is mostly transformed into marital childbirth, the proportion of unmarried births is extremely low, and the relatively high abortion rate when the unmarried person does not have a relatively stable cohabiting partner (unable to marry), it is the result of the long-term role of the "family" culture similar to the above, and the relevant institutional norms that do not support out-of-wedlock birth are also the results of the long-term role of this culture.
This cultural background makes Chinese women's marriage, pregnancy, marriage and childbearing choices appear to be a mixture of the second demographic transformation and the traditional model. On the one hand, at the individual level, there is a further separation of marriage-sex (pregnancy) relationships, on the other hand, there is no obvious separation of childbearing and marriage, and unmarried cohabitation and unmarried pregnancy are a multiple choice before formal marriage, becoming an intermediate form or transitional form of transition to marriage and childbearing. China's traditional marriage and childbearing model: "love-marriage-sex/pregnancy-childbearing" is still dominating, and a tributary of marriage and childbearing mode with mixed characteristics, "love-sex/unmarried cohabitation (unmarried pregnancy)-marriage-childbearing", is also emerging.
▍ Conclusion
As a consequence of liberal, individualistic, and sexually liberating ideas, unmarried pregnancies do have an increasing trend in China and are moving from a "concerned adolescent issue" to a group choice with a high prevalence. However, based on the profound background of the "family" culture, people are still following or maintaining the inherent connection between fertility and marriage, pregnancy can be a premarital behavior, individual behavior, but childbirth is still a marital behavior, must consider the family demands, social and cultural norms of the behavior. Compared with the mainstream traditional marriage and childbearing model "love-marriage-sex/pregnancy-fertility", the tributary model "love-sex/unmarried cohabitation (unmarried pregnancy)-marriage-childbearing" has changed, but still follows the traditional order of "marrying first and having children later". Unmarried cohabitation and unmarried pregnancy have become a secondary multiple choice before formal marriage, becoming an intermediate or transitional form of transition to marriage and childbearing, rather than a substitute form.
Of course, in addition to the high conversion rate from unmarried pregnancy to marriage, there are still a considerable number of unmarried childbirth, and paying attention to the situation of this part of the group, especially the physiological and psychological impact of unmarried childbirth on mothers, infants and young children, will be beneficial to improving the welfare level of mothers and infants.
This article was originally published in the Journal of Demography, No. 6, 2020, originally titled "New Trends in Marriage and Pregnancy in Women Born Since 1957: An Analysis Centered on Unmarried Pregnancy". Welcome to share personally, media reprint please contact the copyright owner.
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