Regional Squeeze: An Analytical Framework for Understanding Men's Marriage Difficulty in China

Taking Guizhou province as an example, this research selects the 1995, 2005, 2015 1% National Population Sample Survey Data, and 2010 The Sixth National Census Data to describe the status quo of marriage difficulties of older unmarried men or bachelors in China. This research constructs a new analysis framework "regional squeeze" to discuss the causes to marriage difficulties of older unmarried men or bachelors. The analysis indicators include: (1) direct female marriage migration; (2) women's migration from work to business or work and employment which has an indirect impact on marriage difficulties; (3) degree of regional squeeze. This paper holds that the existing marriage squeeze perspective cannot effectively explain how the difficulty of matchmaking of older unmarried men or bachelors is formed. Under constructing the framework, the paper finds all of the indexes, the direct regional squeeze index, indirect regional squeeze index or comprehensive regional squeeze index, can reflect the severe squeeze of developed areas along the eastern coast to the remote and underdeveloped areas of western China. As a result, there are a large number of unmarried men or bachelors in the remote and underdeveloped areas of the western China just like Guizhou.