Professor Yang Hua of Wuhan University: "Encouraging young women to stay in their hometowns" is a palliative rather than a cure

According to the information on the official website of the statistical units of many places, in response to the "Notice of the National Bureau of Statistics on Carrying out research on the marriage relationship of rural youth", many places conducted a survey on marriage and fertility of rural youth groups in the second half of this year. The results show that the marriage rate and fertility rate of rural youth are generally lower than in the past. Taking Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, as an example, among the local rural youth who are married or divorced, the proportion of rural youth with one child is 62.5%, the proportion of two children is 23.21%, and the proportion of three children is 0.89%; 13.39% of respondents did not have children.

"Unlike the young people in the cities who are no longer willing to have children, the rural youth are actually willing to have children or even have two or three children, but they dare not give birth." Yang Hua, a professor, researcher and doctoral supervisor at the School of Sociology of Wuhan University, found in decades of rural research that although there is still a strong willingness to have children, young people in rural areas are often subject to high-cost marriage and life patterns, resulting in difficulties in marriage, less childbearing, and even falling into the situation of "having two sons to cry".

Yang Hua believes that in addition to the widely discussed imbalanced sex ratio, farmers moving to the city is also one of the main reasons for the decline in the marriage and fertility rates of the rural population.

In July 2021, Yang Hua conducted research in rural Hunan. The first on the left is Yang Hua. Courtesy of respondents

Some rural areas are plagued by high marriage costs

Beijing News: When did you start to do research on rural marriage and fertility? How was it investigated?

Yang Hua: Since 2007, I have spent at least 3 months a year doing fieldwork in rural areas across the country. When I was in the village, I had at least two interviewees every day, talking for two or three hours in the morning and afternoon. The content of the talks was very comprehensive, political, economic, and cultural, and at the same time, they would listen to a lot of their own family situations.

Beijing News: What was your special experience at the beginning?

Yang Hua: Ten years ago, when I was researching in Henan, I heard that they were plagued by the high cost of marriage. At that time, to say a daughter-in-law in the village, it was necessary to build a new house in the village, the kind with a yard, and the gate had to be graded, otherwise it would be difficult to successfully match the media.

I remember that I knew a family in the countryside of Kaifeng, and I made a lot of matchmaking for my son, whether it was a professional matchmaker or a relative. The son was still unmarried at the age of 28, which is a very old unmarried young man in the local area. Why? Mainly because the courtyard wall of their yard has not yet been built, and the house is also an old-fashioned house. After my research, their family built a new house, and soon it was in full swing. It wasn't long before the son got married.

Beijing News: Are the costs of building a house usually borne by the man's family?

Yang Hua: Yes, in rural areas, the number of marriageable women is lower than the number of marriageable men, usually 100 women correspond to 108 to 120 men, and the courtship competition of men is quite fierce, so the cost of marriage is basically borne by men.

Beijing News: Not long ago, in order to solve the problem of difficult mate selection for elderly young men in rural areas, the Civil Affairs Bureau of a certain place "encouraged young women to stay in their hometowns".

Yang Hua: This is a palliative rather than a cure. The imbalance between male and female sex is reflected in rural and urban areas, there are more men and fewer women, no matter where young women flow, they are destined to have relatively poor conditions of young men who cannot find a spouse.

Beijing News: In your research, what are the marriage channels for young people in rural areas, is it marriage autonomy, with "love" as the main orientation or the traditional matchmaker's words?

Yang Hua: Most rural areas now, especially those north of the Huai River, are mainly married through blind dates. I have observed that young people in rural areas, even if they go out to work, the cultural system of the original family requires him to accept his parents' blind date arrangements when he returns home for the New Year, and eventually enters the marriage of union with locals. In the countryside to the north, I have seen less than 10% of marriages with foreigners. This is a continuation of the traditional concept of marriage, feeling that it is reliable to find locals, afraid that foreign daughters-in-law will run away and the marriage will be unstable.

Beijing News: Is this way of blind date the same for men and women?

Yang Hua: The proportion of women looking for foreigners is higher, about 15% to 20%. Because after women leave the countryside, the success rate of "looking up" in developed areas is a little larger, after all, in the public perception, it is normal for women to find a stronger and better opposite sex to marry. Men are different, usually "down". Then in the rural family view, it is better to go back to the hometown to find a local girl.

"To have two sons is to cry"

Beijing News: In your follow-up research, has the above marriage cost changed?

Yang Hua: I recently went to Zhumadian to investigate, and found that the most common phenomenon at present is that if a man wants to be close to a woman, he must first have a car of more than 100,000 yuan and have a house in the county. Now the average price of houses per square meter in the county is also six or seven thousand yuan, so the down payment of the house, the purchase of a car plus more than 100,000 dowries, the total cost of marriage is low as five or six hundred thousand, and as high as seven or eight hundred thousand.

One son will need six or seven hundred thousand to enter the city, and two sons will need more than one million. This is unbearable for local farming families. Therefore, some villages have a saying, "To have two sons is to cry." ”

Beijing News: Is this a manifestation of the shaking of the traditional concept of fertility?

Yang Hua: Not counting. In fact, there are still boys in rural areas, and they are very happy when they give birth to their first son. But when I gave birth to my second son, I couldn't be happy because the cost was too high to afford. And if the first child is a daughter, it is possible to have another son. I have done a data survey on fertility intentions in rural areas before, and the number of children who are willing to have children after 90 is between 1.5 and 2, the post-80s are in their early 2s, and the post-70s are a little higher. The number of births after the 90s is about 21.3% and 14.35% lower than that of the post-70s and post-80s.

Beijing News: So this is not the same as the low fertility rate in urban areas.

Yang Hua: It's not the same. The low fertility rate in cities is not only because of the cost of living, the cost of marriage, but also the result of an entire shift in values. Kochi women and dual-career families in big cities have very low willingness to have children. In the face of career development, it is good that they are willing to give birth to one, let alone three. Rural areas are not without the will to have children, they are essentially willing to have two or three children is very high, but they are worried that they cannot afford to have children, and their willingness to have children is suppressed.

Beijing News: How to understand this "worry"?

Yang Hua: In my understanding, at present, the cost of marriage, living costs and costs of going to the city for farmers can basically be equated. Ten years ago, I was researching in Henan and heard that the condition for becoming a parent was to build a new house in the village. Since 2014, the basic condition for saying kissing has become that the man's family goes to the town and the county to buy a commercial house. Farmers all think of the development of the county and are pursuing an urbanized life.

I previously conducted research on several counties in central China and found that the urbanization rate in various districts and counties is rising, while the fertility rate in most districts and counties is declining. Therefore, it can also be said that urbanization has affected the fertility rate in rural areas. For example, in the countryside north of the Huai River in the Qinling Mountains, the rate of urbanization is very high, and I observed that 70 to 80 percent of rural families buy houses in the county. Correspondingly, there are very few rural families that have three children, and I have hardly observed a few cases, and I am worried that I cannot afford to raise them.

In Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan and other places, due to the low level of urbanization than in the north, most young people still marry in the countryside and live in the countryside, the cost of marriage and living are relatively low, and the rural families with three children appear slightly more, and 30% of the 80s and 90s have three children.

"If done well, the county will become the highland of fertility in China"

Beijing News: How do you evaluate the urbanization life of farmers?

Yang Hua: The key problem is that many peasants come to the county mainly for the education of their children. Because rural education is declining, the number of students and the number of schools are decreasing. When I investigated, I found that students and outstanding teachers are all moving to private schools, and 90% of private schools are in the county. Schools in many rural areas have only one student, with 30 to 50 students being the most common, and more than 50 students is more than one. In the concept of pedagogy, there must be a certain number of students, so that the class size and echelon can be done well.

As a result, schools in rural areas are largely out of the same rate as schools in urban areas. On this basis, peasants can only go to the county seat, buy a suite in the county seat, and let their children go to the city to study.

Beijing News: This has increased the living burden of peasant families?

Yang Hua: This is the most inefficient mode of life. Usually children study in the county, due to the lack of boarding, school bus and other services, it is very necessary for parents to accompany the county. For example, in rural Hengyang, the accompanying rate of primary school students has reached more than 80%. The students are often accompanied by mothers, fathers who go to work on the southeast coast, and grandparents who farm in their hometowns. Such a family split into three parts. And because in addition to the southeast coast, the industry and commerce in the central and western regions are not yet developed, it is difficult for farmers to find jobs after they go to the county, and the mothers who accompany the students are generally full-time students. This creates a waste of young and middle-aged labor, which will place a greater burden on peasant families.

And the more the family burden is, the more they can't afford to raise children, and the more they put all their energy and expectations on the only child. In the survey, I found that the mother who accompanied the study often had conflicts with her children, and there were many family conflicts. The mothers I have been in contact with who have studied with me are basically reluctant to have a second or third child.

Beijing News: Is there any solution at present?

Yang Hua: After the three-child policy was liberalized, various localities are actually exploring ways to encourage fertility. For example, in childcare, children are cared for by childcare institutions after half a year old or one year old, so as to liberate the labor force of parents and try not to let birth and career conflicts be prevented. Many counties and towns are now building childcare mechanisms, some are setting up public welfare organizations, and some are setting up childcare locations in the workplace and units. But the current effect is not obvious.

I think the more essential method is to first do a good job in township education, so that the descendants of peasants do not have to go to the county to study, and save the living and marriage costs of peasant families. The second is to make urbanization in rural areas accompanied by sufficient employment opportunities. For example, when farmers go to the county to buy houses, they can be employed in the county at the same time, which is the real urbanization, which is the urbanization that does not increase the burden of peasants' lives.

In China, the rural population is still at least 500 million or 600 million, if we can do a good job in township education and improve the employment opportunities of the county, I believe that the county will become a highland for China's fertility and a "reservoir" for population growth.

Wen 丨 Beijing News reporter Feng Yuxin

Edited by Hu Jie 丨 Proofreader 丨 Li Shihui