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Attitudes toward Marriage among Unmarried Youth in Large Chinese Cities: Evidence from the 2025 Beijing Survey

Jin Yongai, Hu Wenbo

Population Research 2026, 50 (4): 3-21.

Abstract （4494）

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Using data from the 2025 Beijing Survey on Unmarried Youth's Attitudes toward Marriage, this study examines how urban unmarried youth aged 20-40 view marriage and identifies the factors associated with their intention to marry. The survey focuses on youth who have entered or are about to enter the labor market but have not yet married, allowing observation of how marital expectations form amid the pressures of work, income, housing, and urban life. The analysis draws on descriptive statistics, latent profile analysis, multinomial logit models, and survey experiments on working hours, income, and online information about marriage.

Findings show that urban unmarried youth have not yet rejected marriage. Most respondents have dating experience, and fewer than 10% report no intention to marry. Clear plans, however, are far from the norm of universal marriage: only 49.7% intend to marry, while 42.1% prefer to “let things take their course” (shunqiziran). Men are more likely to express clear marriage intentions, whereas women are disproportionately concentrated in the “shunqiziran” group. These patterns suggest that the central issue is not a firm rejection of marriage but the spread of conditionality and deferral.

Latent profile analysis identifies four profiles of marriage values: high-endorsement, stable-endorsement, emotion-oriented, and low-endorsement. The first two together account for nearly 70% of respondents, indicating that marriage continues to be regarded as meaningful. However, the remaining profiles reveal that a substantial minority no longer evaluates marriage primarily through necessity, reproduction, or material security, but instead emphasizes emotional quality, individual choice, and personal experience.

The weakening of marriage intentions is closely related to practical constraints and perceived risks. Economic pressure, long working hours, career priorities, and spouse-matching difficulties are widely regarded as barriers even among those who intend to marry. Men more often cite economic pressure, whereas women more often cite post-marital family responsibilities, marital risk, and possible declines in quality of life. The “shunqiziran” group does not express a stable preference for non-marital lifestyles; rather, their hesitation reflects unmet preconditions and unresolved risk expectations. Survey experiments show that higher income and shorter working hours each raise marriage intentions, but trading one for the other yields no improvement, indicating that income security and disposable time are jointly necessary. The online information environment also plays an important role: negative online marriage-related information suppresses marriage intentions more strongly than positive information enhances them, suggesting that the internet functions as a risk-perception amplifier rather than an independent source of low marriage intentions.

Overall, low marriage intentions among urban unmarried youth should not be read as the product of a fundamental shift in values. They are better interpreted as the joint outcome of the changing meaning of marriage, rising barriers to entry, the unequal gendering of family responsibilities, and the online information environment—conditions that make marriage feel less attainable rather than less desirable. Policies should move beyond value advocacy by reducing working hours and pressure, improving economic and housing support, promoting gender equality in family responsibilities, and improving the public information environment surrounding marriage and family life, in order to help youth transform their remaining marital expectations into achievable life plans.

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Marriage and Fertility Transition in China: Pace, Pathway, and Cross-National Comparison

Yu Jia, He Yuchen, Tang Yuxin

Population Research 2026, 50 (4): 22-40.

Abstract （3876）

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This study takes pace as an analytical perspective and integrates multiple Chinese and international survey datasets to examine the pace structure across different stages of marriage and childbearing in China. It adopts two complementary strategies: international comparison and comparison between attitudes and behavior. Beyond the direction and magnitude of change, the study asks when changes in different stages began, how rapidly they proceeded, and how their uneven paces have restructured the overall process.

The international comparison yields three main findings. First, nontraditional events, including cohabitation, divorce, and nonmarital childbearing, have spread at different speeds in China, but none has substantively replaced mainstream marriage and childbearing arrangements. Cohabitation experience has increased relatively rapidly among young cohorts, marital instability has risen slowly, and the share of nonmarital births has shown no clear upward trend. Second, the postponement of entry into marriage and childbearing began relatively late and remains limited in cumulative magnitude, but the process from first marriage to the completion of childbearing has compressed rapidly. Mean ages at first marriage and first birth have continued to rise, whereas cohort completed fertility has fallen sharply and the intervals from first marriage to first birth and last birth have narrowed much faster than in other countries. Third, the outer boundaries of the process remain relatively stable: the proportions of lifelong non-marriage and childlessness have increased only slightly, and near-universal marriage and childbearing have persisted.

These patterns distinguish three broad pathways. Western countries represent an “overall deconstruction-new equilibrium” pathway, in which cohabitation substitutes for marriage, nonmarital childbearing is widespread, and lifelong non-marriage and childlessness rose substantially before stabilizing. Japan and South Korea represent an “accelerated boundary-loosening” pathway, characterized by low levels of cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing but rapidly rising lifelong non-marriage and childlessness. China represents a “stable boundaries-internal restructuring” pathway: mainstream marriage and childbearing persist, whereas postponement, fertility decline, compression of the marriage and childbearing process, and emerging marriage and childbearing events change at differentiated speeds.

The attitude-behavior comparison further reveals stage-specific divergence. Attitudinal change leads behavioral change in domains centered on individual choice, including acceptance of non-marriage, childlessness, cohabitation, and divorce. Behavioral change leads attitudinal adjustment in domains more strongly constrained by practical conditions, including the timing of first marriage and first birth, and the number of children.

China's “stable boundaries-internal restructuring” pathway reflects two intertwined mechanisms. The stability of its outer boundaries stems from the close coupling of marriage and childbearing, Confucian ideas of lineage continuation, and reinforcing institutional arrangements. Internal restructuring is driven jointly by modernization and policy change. By identifying this pathway, the study offers an empirical account of China's marriage and childbearing transition that supplements and revises theories of the second demographic transition, the deinstitutionalization of marriage, and compressed modernity. It shows that compressed transformation does not accelerate uniformly across all stages but instead exhibits substantial internal differentiation. The pace perspective also helps assess whether social norms, institutional arrangements, and public policies can adapt to rapid changes in marriage and childbearing.

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Beyond a Marriage-Centered Framework: Non-Marital Relationships in International Contexts and Their Implications for Chinese Families

Qian Yue, Hu Yang

Population Research 2026, 50 (4): 41-55.

Abstract （4550）

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Over the past few decades, there have been signs of a marriage decline across many world regions. Alongside this trend, individuals increasingly form intimate partnerships or family-like ties outside marriage. Non-marital and alternative family configurations are no longer rare exceptions, but are emerging as significant family forms that coexist with marriage while reshaping the meaning and boundaries of family in everyday life. Chinese families are undergoing profound transformations, as manifested in the growing consensus among younger generations that marriage is no longer “a must” in life. Despite shifting attitudes toward marriage among young people and increasingly diverse forms of intimate relationships, research on Chinese families still centers on marriage.

Drawing on international scholarship and cross-national data, we move beyond a marriage-centered lens to examine three forms of non-marital relationships—cohabitation, living-apart-together (LAT) partnerships, and chosen families (i.e., families defined not by marriage or blood but by mutual support and enduring solidarity). We analyze the trends and organizing logics of these non-marital relationships and consider their implications for China.

The findings reveal that among women aged 30-34, the percentage of the married declined from 99% in 1982 to 88% in 2020 in China, and the corresponding figures fell from 63%-87% in the 1980s to below 50% in 2020-2023 in many Western countries. Despite their unmarried status, many people still “do” family in alternative ways. In 2022-2024, 18%-59% of unmarried adults aged 25-44 had a cohabiting partner in Western countries, compared with around 2% in China. In European countries, 5%-13% of adults aged 18-79 were in LAT partnerships between 2020 and 2024, although comparable figures for China remain unavailable. Evidence from Western scholarship and Chinese public discourse suggests that chosen families are not confined to marginalized groups, but rather represent a common way in which people, especially never-married older women, construct intimacy beyond couple relationships.

Non-marital relationships carry different meanings in the West and China. In Western societies, cohabitation has increasingly become an alternative to marriage, whereas in China it is mainly considered a prelude to marriage. Western LAT partnerships emphasize individual autonomy, yet in China, their formation is shaped more by structural factors such as the household registration (hukou) system. Chosen families in Western contexts are often associated with marginalized groups and viewed as an individualized family form, whereas in China such family practices may be primarily driven by anxiety about old-age care.

This study makes several contributions. It highlights that family change is reflected not only in the transformation of the marital institution but also in the diversification of non-marital relationships. By moving beyond a marriage-centered framework, this study broadens the scope of research on Chinese families. It argues that Chinese families are shaped by the dynamic interplay between structural resilience and practical flexibility. As such, non-marital relationships must be understood in relation to institutional contexts, life-course trajectories, and individual practices. This study advocates for incorporating non-marital relationship modules into large-scale social surveys in China to facilitate research in this area. Foregrounding non-marital relationships, this study enables a more comprehensive understanding of the growing diversity and complexity of family life in contemporary China, while contributing to policy development and theoretical advancement amid rapid societal and family transformations.

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