A survey of young people’s willingness to marry and love： What are young people worried about in the face of marriage？
Marriage is the bond of family, and family is the cell of society. The harmony of marriage and family is related to people’s livelihood happiness and social stability. "Generation Z" (referring to 1995— The generation born in 2009, also known as the "Internet generation") is the main force of marriage in the next 10 years, and their willingness to marry deserves attention. In view of this, the research group of Socialism with Chinese characteristics Theoretical System Research Center of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League conducted an in-depth investigation on 2,905 unmarried urban youths aged 18-26 through questionnaires and in-depth interviews, focusing on how they view love and marriage, and what worries are behind their willingness to marry and love, and put forward countermeasures and suggestions on how to help them correctly understand and treat marriage and love issues.
Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, two festivals in succession, 26-year-old Xiao Gu was urged to get married by her mother: "Why don’t you fall in love?" People your age are in love and married, and all the children can play soy sauce. You are not too slow. Don’t pick and choose, and finally you can only pick the rest of others. " Xiao Gu’s good mood for the holiday plummeted and quarreled with his mother: "Do you have to make me so miserable?" Many people around me, like me, are not in love. It is my freedom to think when to fall in love and get married. Don’t rush me again! "
This kind of urging marriage has been staged in many families and has become a major theme of the conflict between the two generations. This also reflects that with the changes of the times, the attitude of young people towards marriage and love has changed greatly. Born in 1995— Young people in 2009, as "Internet generation", what are their views on marriage and love? What are they worried about in the face of marriage?
1. Willingness to love has become a major feature of young people’s views on marriage and love.
"My parents are more anxious than me about getting married, and they always urge me to move out of my home."
"I haven’t enjoyed my single life enough. I want to do a good job first, then buy my own house, and talk about it after I get married."
"I don’t want to settle, but it’s hard to find a suitable person to get married."
"I haven’t seriously talked about an object. Film and television dramas and social media have a great influence on my concept of mate selection."
… … … …
Marriage is a major event in life, and "when a man is older, when a woman is older" is our traditional marriage value. In recent years, more and more young people are wandering outside the marriage hall, and the delay of marriage age and young people’s low willingness to love and marry (they don’t want to fall in love/get married, and they are not sure whether they will fall in love/get married) have become the hidden worries of the whole society.
In the survey, on the question "Will you fall in love in the future?", 12.8% of the young people chose "not to fall in love" and 26.3% of the respondents expressed uncertainty. As for "Will you get married in the future?", 25.1% of young people choose "not sure" and 8.9% choose "not getting married", that is, 34% of young people no longer take marriage for granted. In addition, nearly 30% of the young people interviewed have never been in love.
The survey found that as the main force of marriage in the next 10 years, the "Z generation" youth’s willingness to get married showed a downward trend. According to the world marriage data released by the United Nations Population Division, by 2030, the proportion of people aged 20-29 who are married in China will be 69.2%, which will be 8 percentage points lower than that in 2013.
Further analysis shows that women’s willingness to get married is obviously lower than that of men. 43.92% of women said "not married" and "not sure whether they will get married", 19.29% more than men. Women are more hesitant about marriage. However, in the investigation of love attitude, this gender difference was not found. This shows that women are more cautious about marriage.
The proportion of young people in economically developed areas who choose not to get married is 14.4%, which is 7.7 percentage points higher than that of young people in small cities. This shows that the more developed the economy, the more people choose to be single. According to a statistical data, the provinces with the lowest marriage rate in China are the economically developed Shanghai and Zhejiang provinces. With the improvement of economic development level, the number of young people with low willingness to marry and love may continue to increase.
2. Young people who are willing to marry and love, what are they thinking?
"Worried about marriage" trapped by practical obstacles.An interviewed youth said: "In big cities, there are only two kinds of young people, those with houses and those without houses. How can a person without a house have a beautiful love? " This self-mockery represents the psychology of some "marriage-worried people". These young people are worried and helpless because of the high cost of marriage and childbirth in reality, and their willingness to enter marriage is virtually suppressed. Chinese has always pursued living and working in peace and contentment, and the wedding room has become the standard for marriage in the eyes of some people. The pressure of real estate has become a major obstacle for young people to choose marriage. A survey of Beijing youth by China Youth Research Association shows that among unmarried young people who are in love, the proportion of both parties without real estate is 64.62%. According to this survey, among the reasons that affect the willingness to get married, 46% of the young people choose "the economic cost of getting married is too high". In addition, 56.2% chose "the cost of bearing and raising children is too high", ranking second in influencing the willingness to get married. Worries about the cost of childbearing and rearing have made many young people flinch from marriage. "get married? To consider bride price, banquet, house, car and children, these eight words stumped me. " The playful speech of netizens revealed the worries of these "marriage-worried families".
The "fear of marriage people" who label marriage.Netizen Xiao Zhou said: "My parents asked me why I don’t want to fall in love and get married? I said I’m afraid. I’m afraid that love will break up, marriage will fail, giving birth to children will suffer, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is difficult to handle, and it’s too tiring to educate children … …” The fear of marriage people, represented by Xiao Zhou, have more negative cognition and expected deviation about marriage and are full of fear and anxiety. They "talk about marriage", and some people don’t even have the courage to fall in love. According to the survey, among the reasons that affect the marriage intention, 30.5% of the young people choose "not believing in marriage", among which 73.4% are women, and more women are "fear of marriage" than men. Some of these young people’s negative cognition of marriage comes from their own bad marriage experience or their parents’ relatives and friends, and some come from the mass media’s reports on the malignant events of marriage. For example, an interviewee said, "I can’t imagine myself after marriage, like mom and dad?" Noisy, hate each other for a lifetime? " Others said: "Look at how many cases of wife-killing and insurance fraud on the Internet and how many cases of divorce and murder. How dare you get married if you watch too much news!"
A "lazy marriage family" with a "Buddhist" attitude towards marriage. There is also a group of young people who are not exclusive to love and marriage, but they do not make special efforts to find the "other half", but take a happy-go-lucky attitude. Xiao Li said: "I won’t go around blind date just to get married. Maybe I will meet the right person in the future and join hands in the marriage hall, but if I can’t find it, I can live alone. " High-pressure work and study and fast-paced lifestyle consume a lot of energy of young people, and they have no time and patience to invest in love and marriage. In the survey, 34.5% chose "I feel that I have no time or energy to get married". In addition, among the reasons that affect the willingness to get married, 60.8% of the young people choose "it is difficult to find the right person", ranking first. With no time and low probability of success, many young people choose the "Buddhist" marriage attitude. There are still some young people who are immersed in the protection of family of origin, and the ease of their existing life has killed their motivation to pursue a happy marriage. The netizen silently said, "I have been living in the care of my father, mother and brother since I was a child. I think it is good to stay at home." They advised me to go out to participate in activities and take the initiative to meet some opposite sex, but I was too lazy to go. "
"Unmarried people" disenchanted with marriage.The rapid advancement of modernization and urbanization has enhanced the subjectivity and independence of young individuals. The vigorous development of the Internet has enhanced the right to speak of young people in social life, and their attitudes towards marriage and love have changed. Many people no longer regard "getting married and having children" as a necessary process in life. Some young people yearn for a free and unrestrained life, and think that an interesting single life is better than a marriage. These unmarried people regard being single as a way of life and devote more time and energy to their personal career development and hobbies. In the survey, when asked about the reason of "not wanting to fall in love", the proportion of choosing "being alone is very good and falling in love is very troublesome" is 74.8%. "I don’t want someone to affect my mood. I don’t want to deal with another person’s emotions when I am very busy and tired." "I have a house in my name and money in my pocket. This is the real sense of security. Marriage is not a must, and it is not a source of security. " These remarks express the voices of some "unmarried people".
3. What makes young people linger in front of the marriage hall
Based on individualistic values, some young people attach too much importance to the pursuit of personal value. The biggest representation of individualism is the expectation of "living for yourself". "Generation Z" youth are deeply influenced by individualism. They pay attention to their emotional cognition, psychological experience, spiritual needs and value realization. They are not only distinctive in personality, but also prominent in self-awareness and more independent. Under the guidance of individualistic values, these young people have a stronger sense of independence in marriage and love, and pay attention to self-feeling and independent choice. If marriage can not improve their quality of life, or affect the realization of personal self-worth, they are unwilling to accept and choose marriage.
Based on the fragmented cognition of the Internet, some young people have disastrous thinking about marriage and love. The sea quantification and fragmentation of Internet information lead to the weakening of deep thinking ability and the decline of information discrimination ability, which is easy to form perceptual deviation and stereotype. With the development and popularization of the Internet, the "Z generation" youth’s cognition of marriage and love largely comes from the Internet. Once their fragmented and unsystematic knowledge and fragmented thinking about love and marriage are coupled with negative experiences in life and negative reports in mass media, they will form irrational and disastrous thinking about love and marriage, and then the phenomenon of "fear of marriage" will appear.
Due to the squeeze of time and space in modern life, some young people feel powerless to find a desirable partner. In today’s society with increasingly fierce competition and increasing work pressure, high-intensity work constantly squeezes the personal life of young people, resulting in tension between work and mate selection. "White plus black", "996" and "007" have become the normal state of work and life for some young people. They often sigh "tired and don’t love" and just want to lie quietly after work. In addition, the interpersonal circle is small, the network meets most of the communication needs, the actual social needs are reduced, the information about marriage and love is asymmetric, and the credibility of the commercial marriage and love service platform is insufficient, which increases the difficulty of searching for a desirable partner and prolongs the search time. Multiple objective factors have led to some young people’s low willingness to get married and forced to choose single.
Based on the concept of choosing a spouse, some young people have high expectations for marriage matching. The difficulty in mate selection is the primary reason why young people are "uncertain" about whether to get married. In addition to the above objective reasons, the high expectation of a desirable spouse is the internal subjective factor of young people’s low willingness to marry and love. Many young people hold an idealistic attitude towards mate selection, and when there is a gap between expectation and reality, they will lament: "It is too difficult to find the right one!" They not only pay attention to "the right match", but also pay attention to "internal matching"; It requires both material foundation and the combination of the three views; Both "drop-dead gorgeous" and "interesting mind" are required. This concept of "preferring to lack rather than abuse" causes their expectations of their partners to be too idealistic, which may lead them to miss the best time for love and marriage.
Due to the high cost of marriage and childbearing, some young people take a rational evasive attitude towards marriage risks. With the improvement of social consumption level and the general attention to children, "can’t afford to love", "can’t afford to marry" and "can’t afford to raise" have become three mountains in the life of "Z generation" youth. A related survey on Valentine’s Day found that 10.77% of the post-95 generation had borrowed money from their lover. High-priced wedding rooms, sky-high bride price, extravagant weddings and other wedding customs make young people spend hundreds of thousands to millions of yuan on marriage. The pressure caused by the refinement of raising children and the high investment in educating children makes young people call out "dare not live" and have a fear of education. The attitude of "Generation Z" youth towards marriage is more rational and pragmatic, and the attitude towards "cost — The balance of income has become an important factor in marriage decision-making. If they think that the cost of marriage is higher than the income, in order to avoid the risks that they may face after marriage, such as "unhappy marriage", "marriage will bring a lot of troubles" and "failing to raise children", it becomes their choice to reduce and suppress their willingness to marry.
Based on "motherhood punishment", some women have resistance and hesitation to marriage. With the process of urbanization and marketization, women also face fierce competition in the workplace. However, the family-oriented child care model and the imperfect social public service system make women have to face the "motherhood punishment" caused by "motherhood culture" and occupational discrimination. "Motherhood punishment" refers to the negative effects that women encounter in job hunting, job evaluation, salary and promotion opportunities because of their mother role. The survey found that the primary reason why women don’t want to get married is "don’t want to have children" (accounting for 68.83%), and the hesitation about giving birth has become an objective obstacle for women not to get married. In addition, with the continuous manifestation of subjectivity, many young women gradually break through the barriers of traditional gender culture and redefine the meaning of gender roles in the times in order to remain single to show their resistance to traditional gender roles and "mother roles".
4. How to make young people "love", "want to get married" and "dare to get married"
Improve personal marriage and love accomplishment, so that "unrequited" people can "love". For the "lazy marriage family", it is necessary not only to achieve economic independence, but also to "wean" psychologically and get out of the comfort zone, so as to make room for seeking intimacy and activate the motivation to enter love and marriage. At the same time, actively explore interpersonal communication circles, enrich spare time, and actively learn the skills of communicating with the opposite sex. For "fear of marriage people", it is necessary to treat the direct or indirect negative experience of marriage and love rationally, analyze the specific problems, sum up the failed experience, change the thinking and cognition of "extremely bad" marriage, and eliminate the fear. For those who are worried about marriage, it is necessary to set reasonable self-expectation and mate selection criteria, not to follow the trend, not to compare with others, to calm their minds, to be based on reality, and to attach importance to the value of marriage to the spiritual nourishment of both parties, such as the agreement of values, the similarity of interests and personalities, and to bravely pursue their own beautiful love.
Make fear of marriage "fearless" on the basis of systematic marriage and love education. Establish a trinity of school, family and community education system for youth marriage and love. First, it is suggested that the education department organize experts in love and marriage to design courses, incorporate love and marriage education into the ideological and political education system, and set up relevant courses in junior high school, senior high school and university from three aspects: values, knowledge and ability. Colleges and universities should combine classroom teaching with extracurricular activities, online and offline, so that teenagers can form values that attach importance to marriage and family; Popularize the knowledge of gender relations, dispel the fragmented cognition of the internet with systematic education, and correct the irrational concept and disastrous thinking about marriage and childbirth. Second, the family should play an active role in emotional harbor, advocate the excellent family education style of harmony between husband and wife, equality between men and women, and emotional harmony, enhance the positive experience of teenagers about marriage and love, and stimulate their yearning for emotional experiences such as love and marriage. Third, it is suggested that the community, together with professional social organizations and marriage experts, set up activities such as youth marriage classes and marriage counseling to improve the accessibility of marriage education and enhance the emotional management ability of young people.
Build a "marriage-friendly" environment, so that "want to knot" can knot. First, the propaganda department organizes and promotes the media, literary and art societies, cultural companies, etc. to create positive cultural products of marriage and love families, and organizes selection activities such as the most beautiful family and the most beautiful couple to visualize the picture of a beautiful love and happy family and arouse the positive emotional experience of young people based on marriage and family happiness. In addition, the civilized and simple "new marriage custom" is vigorously advocated in the whole society, so that the love marriage can get rid of the utilitarian color and bad customs, so that the whole society is ashamed of "concluding marriage = economic demand", so that young people can get rid of the internal and external pressure that "people who have no house are not qualified to fall in love" and return to the beautiful picture of "two people working together and starting from scratch".
The second is to give full play to the advantages of group organizations, integrate platform resources such as civil affairs departments, market institutions and social non-profit organizations, establish and improve a big data platform for dating information, explore and develop a mobile internet dating platform with multi-functions such as information collection and scientific matching, and create a group of public welfare dating service brands with low cost, strong accessibility and high trust, and provide professional and accurate dating services.
Third, the government should strengthen the system design with the purpose of "friendship between marriage and love" and formulate preferential policies for public renting and buying houses for marriageable young people; Enterprises and institutions should strictly protect workers’ labor rights and interests, oppose excessive overtime culture in the workplace, and protect workers’ right to rest and leisure space; Unit trade unions and Communist Youth League organizations can actively organize youth friendship activities to enrich the leisure and cultural life of young people.
Take the supporting policies and services of fertility as the guarantee, and let those who are afraid of life "dare to get married". The first is to provide universal care services that are "affordable", "affordable" and "safe". It is suggested that the central level should strengthen the top-level design, issue a list of policy support, and build a diversified and multi-level inclusive care service system by integrating child care, organizing by social organizations, running by employers and embedding in communities. Systematic training of nursery practitioners to provide high-quality talent support for nursery services. The government and industry associations should do a good job in training employees and constantly improve their professional identity. Relevant departments should strengthen the improvement and implementation of the qualification identification and filing management system, information disclosure system, quality supervision and evaluation system of nursery service institutions.
The second is to improve the fertility support policy with the purpose of "female friendliness". Improve the legislation related to marriage and childbirth, extend male paternity leave, set up flexible and enforceable paid parental leave for both parents, and guide men to take on more parenting responsibilities. We should change the existing "employer responsibility system" mode of bearing maternity insurance costs, strengthen the government’s overall planning and promote the social sharing of maternity costs on the basis that all employers pay maternity insurance premiums, so as to reduce the burden of maternity insurance for employers and alleviate gender discrimination in the workplace.
The third is to promote family education guidance and shape a scientific and rational concept of parenting education. Through publicity and education, parents’ classes, etc., we should actively publicize the new concept of talents and the new concept of family education, oppose excessive refinement and comparison-oriented education, put an end to the phenomenon of "rushing to run" in education, and reduce parenting costs and educational anxiety.
(Author: Socialism with Chinese characteristics Theory System Research Center of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League: Yan Xiaoyan, Jiang Zhenhua, Li Yanping)