Through the use of micro-censuses from various years and nationally representative survey data, this thesis systematically explores the importance of institutional changes (the political movements and economic reform) on five decades of educational assortative mating in Communist China. Based on marriages constructed from either birth or marriage cohorts, we are able to detect those massive political upheavals from 1950s to 1970s generally decrease the strength of educational homogamy while increase the propensity of hypogamy. However, since the change over time is linear within the entire period, we do not detect any significant disruptions to reflect episodic shocks attributable to the sent-down movement and the Cultural Revolution.

Additional analyses based on the Chinese Ho...[ Read more ]

Through the use of micro-censuses from various years and nationally representative survey data, this thesis systematically explores the importance of institutional changes (the political movements and economic reform) on five decades of educational assortative mating in Communist China. Based on marriages constructed from either birth or marriage cohorts, we are able to detect those massive political upheavals from 1950s to 1970s generally decrease the strength of educational homogamy while increase the propensity of hypogamy. However, since the change over time is linear within the entire period, we do not detect any significant disruptions to reflect episodic shocks attributable to the sent-down movement and the Cultural Revolution.

Additional analyses based on the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) further allow us to distinguish marriages based on their sent-down experiences or the lack thereof. In particular, we find that college or university-educated women who had experienced sent-down are most likely to be affected by their experience in mate selection. In particular, they are more likely to marry down rather than marry alike. On the other hand, economic reform since the 1980s increases educational homogamy dramatically, though the rate appears to be more stable since 1990s. It seems to confirm the social closure hypothesis in the literature. In sum, we conclude that while political upheavals did not result in any dramatic break in assortative mating, educational expansion and market reform since the early 1980s have paradoxically reduce its openness instead.