Gendering the second demographic transition:gender asymmetry,gendered tension,and cohabitation in contemporary urban China  

作　　者：Yun Zhou 

机构地区：[1]Department of Sociology,University of Michigan,500 S State St,48109 Ann Arbor,MI,USA

出　　处：《China Population and Development Studies》2022年第4期351-372,共22页当代中国人口与发展（英文）

摘　　要：The Second Demographic Transition(SDT)framework highlights individuals'ideational shift toward greater individualism in explaining the rise of non-marriage unions.Contemporary China has seen a substantial increase in premarital cohabitation.Drawing on 65 in-depth interviews with highly educated young urban Chinese women and men,this article examines the gendered ways in which young Chinese adults perceive and make decisions about premarital cohabitation,as they envision their ideal lives and what autonomy and self-realization mean to them.I demonstrate that while male respondents predominantly view cohabitation positively as a risk-reduction strategy for avoiding incompatible marriages,female respondents still consider cohabitation to be a risk-amplification arrangement in practice that increases the possibility of uncertain marriage prospect,unsafe sex,and reputational damages.Young women,but not men,often have to strategizethrough carefully managing information disclosureabout persistent parental expectations that discourage women's premarital cohabitation.As a result,while male respondents regard marriage to be neither the necessary precondition nor the end goal of cohabitation,female respondents,who otherwise emphasize autonomy and individualistic fulfllment,continue to desire a close linkage between cohabitation and marriage.Leveraging the unique strength of qualitative data in demographic research,this article articulates the gender asymmetry in how women and men perceive cohabitation's risks,benefits,and link to marriage.I elucidate the gendered tension between privately-held ideals of individualism vis-a-vis enduring social norms of female marriageability,as women and men differentially navigate parental expectations surrounding cohabitation.In so doing,this article makes a theoretical contribution by bringing a careful treatment of gender into the SDT framework.

关 键 词：COHABITATION GENDER Second demographic transition Urban China In-depth interview 

分 类 号：C924.2[社会学—人口学]