Educational mobility and marriage in rural northwest China

What is it about?

The article highlights the impact of family backgrounds and educational mobility on marriage descisions. Having been supported by their family members during their years of education, graduates from rural family backgrounds feel obliged to also consider the interests of their family, particulary of those family members who supported their years of education. In their marriage decisions, these graduates thus face the dilemma of having not only to balance their own material and emotional interests, but also to reconceile the hopes and plans of important others.

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Why is it important?

The article highlights the perspective of students and graduates from poor rural family backgrounds. Different from their peers in the village who usually end up in labour migration, these university students invest years of heavy educational discipline for the goal of longterm upward mobility into urban society and white collar employment. Yet, after graduation their rural family background remains central to their life planning, particularly when it comes to the question of who to marry. The particular situation of "educational migrants" in Chinese society as a intermediate group between the usual categories of "rural" and "urban" as well as "peasant" and "educated person" has so far seldom been described in the China literature.

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