Male bachelors' living conditions, sexuality and gender roles in a context of reduced availibility of female partners in China – DefiChine

As part of the DefiChine project, a quantitative survey and a qualitative survey (51 semi-structured interviews) were conducted in 2014-2015. The rural component of the quantitative survey was carried out in three rural districts of the Ankang region in southern Shaanxi particularly marked by a surplus of men in the single population (N=1182). The urban component was conducted in Xi'an city (the administrative capital of Shaanxi Province) among male migrants originating from the same rural area (N=877). The rural sample was constructed using a stratified random sampling method that made it possible to form two subsamples: one composed of men who were married or had been married at least once at the time of the survey, and the other one composed of men who have never been married but have passed the prime marriage age (28) at which most men are actually married (at the age of 28, more than 90% of Chinese men are married) and beyond which the chances of experiencing prolonged or even permanent singlehood increase significantly. In the absence of a sampling frame, the sample of migrants was constructed using a “snowball” sampling method combined with some “link-tracing” elements borrowed from the «Network« sampling with memory” methodology.

The DefiChine project has produced seven major results: 1) most single men report difficulties in making their marriage plans a reality because of economic difficulties and the lack of women around them; 2) single men experience social stigmatization, family pressure and significant social isolation; 3) singlehood is, on average, associated with a lower quality of life; 4) a strong normativity surrounds both romantic and sexual relationships and family formation; 5) however, single men are not more inclined than married men to have socially condemned sexual practices (prostitution, homosexuality); 6) the characteristics a man is expected to have to get a chance to marry, centered on his ability to offer upward social mobility to a woman, are strongly internalized; 7) singlehood tends to reinforce stereotyped expectations of the social and family roles of men and women.

A better understanding of the consequences for individuals of a reduced availability of female partners in the marriage and sexuality markets.

Attané I. et l’équipe DefiChine (2018), « Être un homme célibataire en Chine rurale », Population & Sociétés, n°557, 1-4.
Attané I., Eklund L., Merli G., Bozon M., et al., “Understanding male singlehood in poverty-stricken and high sex ratios settings: an exploratory study in rural Shaanxi, China”, The China Quarterly (à paraître en 2018 ou 2019)
Attané I., Eklund L., & Zhang Qunlin (2018), “Gender Attitudes among “Involuntary” Bachelors and Married Men in High Sex Ratio Settings: A Study in Rural Shaanxi, China”, Asian Women, vol. 34 no.3 (sous presse)
Attané I. & Yang Xueyan (2018), “Between Poverty and Normative Pressure: The Quality of Life of Never Married Men in Rural Shaanxi”, China Perspectives, n°1/2: 55-64.
Wang Sasa, Yang Xueyan & Attané I. (2018) “Social Support Networks and Quality of Life of Rural Men in a Context of Marriage Squeeze in China”, American Journal of Men's Health, 12(4): 706-719.
Yang X., Li Shuzhuo, Attané I. & Feldman M. (2017), “On the relationship between the marriage squeeze and the quality of life of rural men in China”, American Journal of Men's Health, 11(3): 702-710.
Yang Xueyan, Wang Jun & Attané I. (2016) “Commercial Sex Behavior of Involuntary Bachelors in a Context of Marriage Squeeze and Migration: Findings from a Survey in Xi’an, China«, Journal of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Social Sciences), 36(136), 91-99.
Eklund, Lisa, and Isabelle Attané (2017) “Marriage squeeze and mate selection in China”. In Xiaowei Zang and Lucy X. Zhao (eds.) Handbook on the family and marriage in China, Edward Elgar Publishing, 156-174.
Eklund, Lisa (2018) “The sex ratio question and the unfolding of a moral panic? Notions of power, choice and self in mate selection among women and men in higher education in China”. In Sharada Srinivasan and Shuzhuo Li (eds), Scarce women and surplus men in China and India. Cham: Springer, 105-125.

China’s population has a characteristic that is shared by very few countries in the world, namely a higher proportion of men than women. Another specific feature is that this male majority has increased over the past decades, with China being now the country with the highest proportion of men in the world after India.

Furthermore, China’s numerical imbalance between the sexes is an unprecedented situation in the documented history of human populations, both in scale and its lasting impact on the number and structure of the population. But while the demographic consequences of a numerical imbalance between men and women are well identified and documented, the impact of a shortage of women on society and individuals remains largely unexplored.

This project will investigate the nature of the individual and social transformations brought about by a reduced availability of female partners on the marriage and sexuality markets, as well as the individual strategies and issues ensuing from it, their effects on union and family formation, gender roles and mate-selection process, and their impact on perceived gender roles and the most intimate aspect of the relation between men and women, sexuality.

The study will be based on a quantitative survey that will be conducted among villagers in rural areas and rural migrants in urban areas of China on a sample of around 4,400 men (married and unmarried, aged 28 to 65 years) and on qualitative interviews.

The project, which focuses on specific aspects of men’s life in a context of numerical imbalance between the sexes, has four basic objectives:

1) To analyse from the theoretical and empirical point of view, men’s propensity to change the social norms governing union and family formation and mate-selection process, by adopting behaviours that compensate the changes in the sex structure, but that do not comply with the original norms;

2) To understand how the reduced availability of female partners influences sexual stratification and men’s perception of women status and gender roles;

3) To study the impact of a reduced availability of female partners on male sexual behaviours, and on men’s propensity to adopt non-standard behaviours in a context of significant social control;

4) To analyse the living conditions of the men who remain unmarried against their will (i.e. the “enforced” male bachelors) (social networks, human and social capital, socio-economic characteristics), given that forming a family within a heterosexual marriage still appears to be a prerequisite for developing social networks and getting social recognition.