关键词: 城乡户口, 婚姻匹配, 地位交换, 反事实分析

Abstract: This study, from an urban-rural integration perspective, examines and compares trends in educational assortative marriages by couple's rural/non-rural hukou status. We use new methods, such as rank-rank correlation and Exchange Index, to analyze 81756 couples from nationally representative survey data (i.e., the 2003-2018 CGSS and 2010 CFPS). We find a substantial and persistent difference between rural and urban marriages. Couples who both have an urban hukou have more similar educational statuses than couples of whom either one or both have a rural hukou. This gap in homogamous tendency is mainly driven by highly educated couples. Moreover, we find gender-asymmetrical hukou-status exchange patterns for rural-urban inter-marrying couples, whose relative advantages in hukou or educational status could not compensate each other. These new findings reveal the profound influence of unbalanced development between rural and urban regions, highlighting potential directions for future policies for better incorporating rural-urban integration with sustained population development.

Keywords: Hukou, Assortative Mating, Status Exchange, Counterfactual Analysis