University of Victoria

Demographically @The Edge? New evidence on Asia’s ‘surplus men’

Sex selection in favour of boys and mass emigration of young women have led to the so-called army of ‘forced bachelors’, men who remain single due to a demographic deficit of women. Most research to date on the impact of the female deficit paints a dramatic and negative picture of these forced bachelors, referred to as Bare Branches. This panel presents original research based on field studies conducted in 2012 in communities particularly affected by the female deficit. We examine how local communities and families of China, India and Vietnam adapt to the new demographic structure. By giving a voice to single men themselves, their families and other community members, we document our study participants' perspectives, family life and plans for the future. Taken together, our evidence finds a gap between how states and researchers have constructed a new demographic crisis and how communities and individuals view and respond to the situation. In sum, papers in this panel show the complexity of the phenomenon and the impossibility to isolate the impact of the relative number of men to women from migration patterns, labour market opportunities, socioeconomic development, evolving social norms, family relations, marriage patterns and the well-being of individuals.

Session Chair: Weizhen Dong, University of Waterloo

Session Organizer: Danièle Bélanger, University of Laval, daniele.belanger@ggr.ulaval.ca

Marital Strategies and Family Relations of Senior Bachelors in Rural China

Kun Zhang, The University of Western Ontario, kzhang73@uwo.ca , Danièle Bélanger, Université Laval , daniele.belanger@ggr.ulaval.ca

A highly skewed sex ratio at birth in China has been documented since the 1980s and its latent demographic and social impact has raised great concerns from the academia in recent years. Less educated and economically poor males in rural areas are more likely to face marriage difficulties. With an increasing number of senior bachelors who fail to marry, it has long been speculated that the existence of these ‘bare branches’ would increase family conflicts, and raise elderly care burdens to households and the state. However, little empirical knowledge is developed regarding their marriage and life dynamics. Based on the two fieldwork conducted in Shannxi and Jiangsu Provinces in 2012, this paper investigates family relations revolving around senior bachelors in three interrelated facets: bride-seeking strategies, intergenerational exchange with old parents, and elderly care strategies of bachelors. Besides the partial portraits of conflicting aspects of family lives, our evidence shows a diversity of family relations, with supportive and harmonious types included. There exists a relatively high level of sibling solidarity in seeking brides for single brothers and participation in elderly care responsibilities. This further indicates a more difficult situation for the cohort of surplus men born under the One-child Policy.

Saturday June 8, 2013 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-060

Between daughter deficit and development deficit: The situation of surplus men in Punjab, India

Sharada Srinivasan, York University, sharada@yorku.ca

The North Indian state of Punjab has a long history of female deficit. Based on a survey of unmarried men over the age of 30 years and their families in eight villages in Nawanshahr district of Punjab, this paper examines the reasons for their unmarried status. Across all the villages while people typically noted that daughter deficit would make it difficult for men to find brides, daughter deficit did not emerge as the number one reason for the unmarried status of the men surveyed. Men who have not been able to marry are likely to be from poorer (landless) households, unemployed or display personal or social problems such as alcoholism or drug addiction. Most men of similar age from better-off families are married or some of the unmarried men have migrated abroad to seek better fortunes. Grooms who live abroad are the first preference among prospective brides followed by men who have an urban job, and men who own land. This marriage preference among the limited number of prospective brides makes it difficult for men from poorer backgrounds to find a bride easily. Daughter deficit interacts with and is masked by a number of other changes that are taking place including rising (male) unemployment and economic insecurity, and important gains made by women in recent years.

Saturday June 8, 2013 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-060

Life events and intra-generational deprivation of bachelor family in rural China

Yan Li, Xi'an Polytechnic University , 2001yoyo@stu.xjtu.edu.cn , Shuzhuo Li, Xi'an Jiaotong University , shzhli@mail.xjtu.edu.cn , Weidong Li, Xi'an Jiaotong University , linchenli@xjtu.edu.cn

Past studies suggest that poverty, poor social capital, and intra-generational resource competition are important reasons explaining why involuntary bachelors have difficulties in finding wives. These hypotheses are based on static perspectives and few studies have focused on intra-generational deprivation which bachelors suffer.

From the life course perspective, this study uses data collected in Shaanxi and Jiangsu Provinces in 2012 and explores bachelors’ intra-generational deprivation. The evidence shows that the continuity of intra-generational deprivation is resulted from the life events that bachelors and their families experience.

Firstly, severe family poverty is the key reason for bachelors’ lacking the ability to get married at the expected age. Secondly, parental death at a young age increases bachelors’ difficulties in getting married. Lastly, household division of big family was the informal institutional factor which also contributes to the deprivation of bachelors. Married children live apart from their parents and took away resource from them. Elderly parents generally lived with their single sons. This arrangement increases parents’ financial responsibility towards their unmarried sons and it further deteriorates the household’s economic situation. This extra burden exacerbates the single son’s ability to marry and creates a form of double deprivation.

Saturday June 8, 2013 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-060

Marriage markets and marital strategies in rural Vietnam: internal and international spacial hypergamy

Danièle Bélanger, Université Laval, daniele.belanger@ggr.ulaval.ca

Over the past two decades large numbers of young women from rural Vietnam have emigrated to Taiwan or South Korean as immigrant spouses. This flow of marriage migrants leads to fears that a group of Vietnamese ‘surplus men’ will face a marriage squeeze and encounter difficulties finding a spouse. Based on 99 interviews conducted in four communities of Vietnam in 2012, this paper examines the impact of international marriage on local communities. First it documents the impact of international marriages on local marriage transactions. Narratives suggest a relationship between the increase in brideprice and the diversification of marital options for women. Second, it shows how men from the poorest strata of society, the most affected by the current marriage market, strategize in their attempts to marry. Results indicate the necessity to consider the intersection of internal migration, labour migration and marriage migration. The analysis suggests that internal migration opportunities and adaptations of local marriage norms largely offset the so-called ‘female deficit’ created by international marriage migration. Conceptually, the notion of spacial hypergamy captures processes of labour and marriage migration.

Saturday June 8, 2013 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-060