Can't find love in the city, return to the hometown and don't get along with each other, where do migrant young men find good relationships?

The city can't find love, and the return to the hometown is not in love

Young migrant workers: Where to find a good relationship between urban and rural areas?

Reporter Chen Xi

Workers Daily (05/02/2022)

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During the Spring Festival holiday, many new generations of migrant workers once again fell into the peak period of "being urged to marry". The reporter found that due to multiple factors such as high dowries and "marriage gradients", the new generation of male migrant workers is becoming more and more disadvantageous in the marriage market. Their opportunities to choose a mate in the city are limited, and they have to return to the traditional marriage circle, and the competition for a blind date back home is also becoming more and more intense. Experts suggest that the remaining institutional obstacles on their way to choosing a mate should be cleared, and at the same time, they should be provided with a platform and time for marriage and love.

"8 blind dates were arranged in 10 days, and I met 3 girls on the sixth day of the first year." This year's Spring Festival, 28-year-old Shandong boy Wang Zhendong was busy. After working in Tianjin for 11 years, he has not met a suitable girl, and his parents have launched relatives and friends to match in his hometown, but he has also repeatedly encountered walls. Wang Zhendong was helpless, "Many fellow villagers are in a similar situation, where is our happiness? ”

The reporter found that due to multiple factors such as high dowries and "marriage gradients", the new generation of male migrant workers is becoming more and more disadvantageous in the marriage market. Their opportunities to choose a mate in the city are limited, and they have to return to the traditional marriage circle, and the competition for a blind date back home is also becoming more and more intense. Many young people wander between urban and rural areas, and eventually fall into the embarrassing situation of "no wife to marry".

Going to town: There are few opportunities for free love

"On February 14, I delivered 9 flowers." As a takeaway rider, shuttling through the romantic atmosphere, Wang Zhendong is difficult to hide his loneliness, "My family is average, only junior high school education, city girls can't look up to me, and rural girls also regard me as an alternative." ”

Unlike their parents, most of the new generation of migrant workers entered the city in an unmarried state, and also jumped into a larger circle of marriage and love. In the gradient marriage model of "male higher and female low", young women have greater choices through migrant work, and young men are thus caught in a more severe mate selection dilemma.

Wang Zhendong has experienced two failed loves, and the reasons given by the woman for breaking up are very consistent, "You earn too little, we have no future." And the cost of just talking about love has made him shy, every time he goes on a date, Wang Zhendong will subconsciously weigh the cost in his heart, "a cup of milk tea is 20 yuan, to send 1 hour of takeaway, a movie 60 yuan, to send 3 hours of takeaway ..."

Qiao Lingling, a waiter at a restaurant in Hangzhou, just rejected the confession of a rural guy: "I want to take root in Hangzhou, not just spend the first half of my life." As a child of migrant workers, Qiao Lingling also knows the taste of being left behind and does not want her children to repeat the same mistakes.

"Although I entered the city, the circle was smaller than before." Shen Weian, a 31-year-old Hubei boy who works as a furniture installer in Beijing, attributes his singleness to his work. "When I first arrived, I changed jobs very frequently, and the opposite sex around me was not fixed, and I didn't have the courage to fall in love." Now this line is full of boys, the work is dirty, bitter, tired, eating and living in the company, there is little leisure time, and there is no contact with girls. ”

Shen Wei'an has communicated with fellow villagers in the same village, who are generally engaged in "same-sex gathering" industries such as express delivery and construction, and many people have the same confusion as him.

Returning home: Blind dates are difficult to choose a mate

Young men cannot find love in the city, and can only turn their eyes back to the countryside, and returning to their hometown to choose a mate has become the mainstream choice. However, the large number of competitors and the high bride price can be called two major "roadblocks".

On the fifth day of the Chinese New Year this year, at the scene of the Blind Date In Pichenghe, Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, more than 100 men lined up in a long line, while the women were only 5. Shen Weian is not unfamiliar with this scene, "Girls of the same age are basically married, there are many people who marry away from home, and there are a lot of boys left, every time they go home for a blind date, there is only a share of the choice."

Jin Yong'ai, associate professor of the School of Society and Population of Chinese Min University, said that in rural areas, due to the demand for labor and the influence of concepts such as "passing on the generations", the number of young men suitable for marriage is large.

As a result, women have the initiative in the marriage market, and the cost of marriage for men has also risen. Zhang Tao, a young man from Henan who just got married last year, not only ran out of his family's savings, but also owed a lot of foreign debt, and was ridiculed by friends as "poor due to marriage". He calculated an account for the reporter, "It cost 480,000 yuan to buy a house in the county, and the daughter-in-law's family asked for a dowry of 160,000 yuan, plus a betrothed relative, a banquet, from blind date to the time of receiving the permit, it cost a total of nearly 750,000 yuan." ”

This huge amount of money made Wang Zhendong feel hopeless, and what also made him feel resistant was the blind date itself. "Two people meet a few times to set up a kiss, and then they go their separate ways, and they can only get along briefly on holidays, and they are not familiar with each other until the wedding day, let alone agree."

For young women, the influence of urban marriage and love is also manifested in the increasing number of unmarried people, which also aggravates the "short supply" of marriageable women. According to the "Rural Youth Marriage Relationship Survey Report" released by Ningbo, Zhejiang Province last year, only 59.85% of women believe that marriage is "very necessary", 22.5 percentage points lower than that of men, and "not wanting to get married" has become an important reason for the unmarried young women of rural school age.

Solution: Create better conditions for marriage and childbearing

A number of experts interviewed said that the premise of achieving a breakthrough in marriage is to help migrant workers better integrate into the city. Further dilute the identity distinction brought about by the dual household registration system between urban and rural areas, establish a unified social security system between urban and rural areas, so that they can enjoy equal rights and interests in employment, medical care, pensions, etc., and clear the institutional obstacles that still exist on the road to mate selection.

Qi Jianan, a researcher at the Chinese and Development Research Center, believes that at the social level, it is necessary to break the stereotypes and bad habits such as sky-high dowries and happy events, and build a new type of marriage and childbearing culture; advocate young people to establish a correct view of marriage, not to use money as the standard to measure the lightness and importance of interpersonal, marriage and family relations; expand the space for public activities, so that young people's interaction and dating are no longer limited to various consumption places, correct negative ideas such as "love is spending money", and create an open and positive social living environment.

"It is necessary to provide a platform and time for migrant workers to choose a mate." Jin Yong'ai believes that on the one hand, the government should encourage and support public service agencies to build a dating platform for young people to exchange information, and enterprises can also jointly carry out various forms of networking activities to broaden their social networks; on the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of the employment of enterprises, ensure the legitimate right of migrant workers to rest and leave, and give them more time to operate life and love.

In the context of the second demographic transformation, some young people pursue the realization of self-worth and no longer believe that marriage and childbearing are the only way in life. In this regard, Li Jianxin, a professor at the Department of Sociology of Peking University, said that while respecting diversified choices and giving young people more space, the society should also give correct guidance, relieve their worries in career development and children's education, and create better conditions for marriage and childbirth.

Source: Workers Daily