In recent years, more and more young people have wandered outside the marriage hall. The postponement of the age of marriage and the low willingness of young people to get married have become hidden concerns for the whole society. Come and read with me this article "Changes in Contemporary Young People's Views on Marriage. What Are Young People Worried About When Faced with Marriage?"
Marriage is the bond of the family, and the family is the cell of society. The harmony of marriage and family is related to people's livelihood, happiness and social stability. "Generation Z" (referring to the generation born between 1995 and 2009, also known as the "Internet Generation") young people will be the main force in getting married in the next 10 years, and their marriage and love intentions deserve attention. In view of this, the research team of the Research Center of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics of the Central Committee of the Youth League of China targeted 2,905 unmarried urban youths aged 18 to 26 through questionnaire surveys, in-depth interviews, etc., focusing on how they view love and marriage, and their willingness to marry. We conducted an in-depth investigation into the worries behind them, and put forward countermeasures and suggestions on how to help them correctly understand and deal with marriage and love issues.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, 26-year-old Xiao Gu was urged to get married by his mother: "Why aren't you in love yet?" People your age are already in love and getting married, and some kids are already into it, so you're not in a hurry. Don't pick and choose, and end up picking what others have left. ?Xiao Gu's good mood during the festival plummeted, and he started to argue with his mother: "Do you have to make me look so miserable?" Many people around me are like me and have never been in love. I am free to fall in love and get married whenever I want, so don’t rush me anymore! ?
Such forced marriages continue to occur in many families and have become a major theme of conflict between two generations. This also reflects that with the changes of the times, young people's attitudes towards marriage and love have changed significantly. Young people born between 1995 and 2009, as the "Internet Generation", what are their views on marriage and love? What are they worried about when it comes to marriage?
1. A major characteristic of young people’s views on marriage and love: 1. My parents are more anxious about getting married than me.
, kept urging me, so much so that I even moved out of my house. ?
?I haven’t enjoyed my single life enough yet. I want to do a good job first, then buy my own house, and then talk about getting married. ?
?I don’t want to give in, but it’s very difficult to find a suitable person to marry. ?
?I have never had a serious relationship with a partner. Movies, TV series and social media have a greater influence on my views on mate selection. ?
Marriage is a major event in life. It is our country’s tradition that men should marry when they are young and women should marry when they are young. marital values. In recent years, more and more young people have wandered outside the marriage hall. The postponement of the age of marriage and the low willingness of young people to get married (do not want to fall in love/get married, are not sure whether they will fall in love/get married) have become hidden concerns for the whole society.
In the survey, when asked "Will you fall in love in the future?", 12.8% of young people chose "Not to fall in love", and 26.3% of the respondents expressed uncertainty. Regarding "Will you get married in the future?", 25.1% of young people chose "Unsure", and 8.9% of young people chose "Will not get married", that is, 34% of young people no longer think that marriage is a matter of course. In addition, nearly 30% of the young people surveyed have never been in love.
The survey found that as the main force of marriage in the next 10 years, the willingness of young people of Generation Z to get married is showing a downward trend. World marriage data released by the United Nations Population Division predicts that by 2030, the rate of married people aged 20 to 29 in my country will be 69.2, which will be 8 percentage points lower than in 2013.
Further analysis found that women’s willingness to get married is significantly lower than men’s. The number of women who said "not getting married" and "not sure whether they will get married" accounted for 43.92, 19.29 more than men. Women show stronger marital hesitancy.
In surveys of romantic attitudes, no such gender differences have been found. This shows that women are more cautious when it comes to marriage.
The proportion of young people in economically developed areas who choose "not to get married" accounts for 14.4, which is 7.7 percentage points higher than that of young people in small cities. This shows that the more developed the economy, the more people actively choose to be single. Statistics show that the provinces with the lowest marriage rates in my country are Shanghai and Zhejiang, which are relatively economically developed. As the level of economic development improves, the number of young people with low willingness to marry may continue to increase.
2. Young people who are willing to get married, what are they thinking
Those who are trapped by practical obstacles? Those who are worried about marriage? One young man interviewed said: "In big cities, there are only two categories of young people, those who own houses and those who do not." How can people without a house have a beautiful love? ?This self-deprecating sentence represents the psychology of some people who are worried about marriage. These young people feel worried and helpless due to the high cost of marriage and childbirth in reality, and their willingness to enter marriage is virtually suppressed. Chinese people have always pursued a peaceful and contented life, and the wedding house has become the standard for marriage in the eyes of some people. The pressure of real estate has become a major obstacle for young people to choose marriage. A survey conducted by the China Youth Research Association on young people in Beijing showed that among unmarried young people with a romantic partner, the proportion of both parties who do not own real estate is 64.62. This survey shows that among the reasons that affect the willingness to get married, 46% of young people choose "the economic cost of getting married is too high". In addition, 56.2% of the respondents chose "The cost of giving birth and raising children is too high", ranking second among the factors affecting their willingness to get married. Worry about the cost of childbirth and childcare has made many young people shy away from marriage. ?marry? I have to consider betrothal gifts, banquets, houses, cars, and children. These eight words stumped me. Netizens' joking remarks expressed the worries of these "marriage-worrying people".
Those who label marriage as "marriage-phobic". Netizen Xiao Zhou said: My parents asked me why I don’t want to fall in love and get married? I said I'm afraid. I'm afraid that love will break up, marriage will fail, childbirth will suffer, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law will be difficult to deal with, and it will be too tiring to educate children. The "marriage fearers" represented by Xiao Zhou have more negative perceptions and expectation deviations about marriage. , full of fear and anxiety. They get so excited when it comes to marriage that some of them don't even have the courage to fall in love. The survey shows that among the reasons that affect the willingness to marry, 30.5% of young people choose not to believe in marriage, of which 73.4% are women. There are more women than men who are afraid of marriage. Some of these young people's negative perceptions of marriage come from the bad marriage and love experiences of themselves or their parents, relatives and friends, and some come from the mass media's reports on malignant marriage events. For example, one interviewee said: ?I can't imagine myself after getting married, like my parents? Noisy, resentful and resentful of each other for the rest of their lives? ?Some people said: ?Look at the number of cases of wife murder and insurance fraud, and the number of divorce and murder cases on the Internet. How dare you get married after seeing too much of these news! ?
The "lazy marriage tribe" who hold a "Buddhist" attitude towards marriage. There is also a type of young people who are not opposed to love and marriage, but they do not make special efforts to find their "other half", but adopt a happy-go-lucky attitude. Xiao Li said: "I will not go on blind dates just to get married." Maybe I will meet the right person in the future and join hands in marriage, but if I can't find it, I can live alone. ?High-stress work and study, and a fast-paced lifestyle consume a lot of energy from young people. They have no time and patience to invest in love and marriage. In the survey, 34.5% said they felt they had no time or energy to get married. In addition, among the reasons that affect the willingness to get married, young people choose "it is difficult to find the right person", accounting for 60.8%, ranking first. Due to lack of time and low probability of success, many young people choose a "Buddhist" attitude toward marriage. There are also some young people who are immersed in the protection of their original families. The comfort of their existing lives has consumed their motivation to pursue marital happiness. Netizens silently said, "Since I was a child, I have always lived under the care of my father, mother, and brother. I think it is good to stay at home." They advised me to go out more and participate in activities and take the initiative to meet some people of the opposite sex, but I was too lazy to go. ?
The "unmarried people" who are disenchanted with marriage.
The rapid advancement of modernization and urbanization has enhanced the subjectivity and independence of young individuals. The booming development of the Internet has enhanced the voice of young people in social life. Their attitudes towards marriage and love have changed. Many people no longer regard "getting married and having children" as an option. It is a necessary journey in life. Some young people yearn for a free and unrestrained life, and believe that an interesting single life is better than a makeshift marriage. These "unmarried people" regard being single as a way of life and devote more time and energy to personal career development and hobbies. In the survey, when asked why they "don't want to fall in love", the proportion of people who chose "It's nice to be alone, but it's troublesome to fall in love" was 74.8. ?I don’t want anyone to affect my mood, and I don’t want to have to deal with another person’s emotions when I’m busy and tired. ?Having a house in your name and money in your pocket is a real sense of security. Marriage is not a necessity, nor is it a source of security. ?These remarks express the aspirations of some "unmarried people".
3. What makes young people linger in front of the marriage hall
Based on individualistic values, some young people pay too much attention to the individual The pursuit of a sense of value. The biggest symptom of individualism is the expectation to "live for yourself". Generation Z youth are deeply influenced by individualism. They pay attention to their own emotional cognition, psychological experience, spiritual needs and value realization. They not only have distinctive personalities, but also have prominent self-awareness and stronger independence. Under the guidance of individualistic values, these young people have a stronger sense of independence in marriage and love, and focus on self-feeling and independent choices. If marriage cannot improve their quality of life or affect the realization of personal self-worth, they will not be willing to accept and choose marriage.
Based on the fragmented cognition of the Internet, some young people have catastrophic thinking about marriage and love. The massive and fragmented nature of Internet information has led to the weakening of in-depth thinking capabilities and the decline in the ability to identify information, which can easily form perceptual biases and stereotypes about things. The "Generation Z" youth who grew up with the development and popularization of the Internet largely come from the Internet for their understanding of marriage and love. Once their fragmented and unsystematic knowledge and fragmented thinking about marriage and love are coupled with negative experiences in life and negative reports in the mass media, they will form irrational and catastrophic thinking about marriage and love, and then the phenomenon of "fear of marriage" will appear.
Due to the squeeze of time and space in modern life, some young people feel powerless in finding a suitable partner. In today's society with increasingly fierce competition and increasing work pressure, high-intensity work continues to squeeze young people's personal lives, causing tension between work and spouse selection. ?White plus black?996?007? has become the normal work and life of some young people. They often lament that they are "too tired to sleep" and just want to lie quietly after get off work. In addition, the interpersonal circle is small, the Internet meets most of the communication needs, the actual social needs are reduced, as well as the asymmetry of marriage and love information, and the lack of credibility of commercial marriage service platforms, all increase the difficulty of searching for a suitable partner and prolong the search time. Multiple objective factors restrict some young people's low willingness to get married and are forced to choose to be single.
Based on the concept of "better to lack than to indulge" in mate selection, some young people have excessive expectations for marriage matching. Difficulty in choosing a suitable spouse is the primary reason why young people are unsure whether to get married. In addition to the above objective reasons, excessive expectations for a desirable spouse is an intrinsic subjective factor in young people's low willingness to marry. Many young people have an idealistic attitude towards mate selection, and when there is a gap between expectations and reality, they lament: "It's too difficult to find the right one!" ?They not only pay attention to "matching the family", but also pay attention to "internal matching"; they require not only material foundation, but also the harmony of three views; they not only require "appearance and responsibility", but also hope for "interesting mind". This "rather lack than excess" view on mate selection causes them to have overly idealistic expectations for their partners, and thus they may miss the best opportunity for love and marriage.
Due to the high cost of marriage and childbirth, some young people adopt a rational avoidance attitude towards marriage risks. With the improvement of social consumption levels and the general emphasis on children, "cannot afford to fall in love, cannot afford to get married, and cannot afford to raise children" have become three big problems in the lives of the young people of Generation Z.
A survey related to Valentine's Day found that 10.77% of those born after 1995 relied on consumer loans to survive Valentine's Day. High-priced wedding rooms, sky-high betrothal gifts, extravagant weddings and other wedding customs make young people often spend hundreds of thousands to millions of yuan getting married. The pressure caused by the meticulousness of raising children and the high investment in educating children has caused young people to say that they are "afraid to have children" and have a fear of childbirth. Young people of Generation Z have a more rational and pragmatic attitude towards marriage, and the weighing of costs and benefits has become an important factor in marriage decision-making. If they believe that the cost of marriage is higher than the benefits, in order to avoid the risks that they may face after marriage: an unhappy marriage, a lot of troubles caused by the marriage, and underachieving children, it becomes their choice to reduce and suppress their willingness to marry and love.
Based on the "motherhood penalty", some women have resistance and hesitation towards marriage. Along with the process of urbanization and marketization, women also face fierce competition in the workplace. However, the family-oriented child care model and the imperfect social public service system force women to face the "motherhood penalty" caused by "motherhood culture" and occupational discrimination. ?Motherhood penalty? That is, the negative impact that women encounter in terms of job search, job evaluation, salary, promotion opportunities, etc. because of their role as mothers. The survey found that the primary reason why women do not want to get married is “not wanting to have children” (accounting for 68.83), and hesitation about childbearing has become an objective obstacle for women not to get married. In addition, as subjectivity continues to manifest, many female young people gradually break through the barriers of traditional gender culture, redefine the contemporary meaning of gender roles, and express their resistance to traditional gender roles and "mother roles" by remaining single.
4. How can young people? Be able to fall in love? Want to get married? Dare to get married?
How to improve personal marriage and love literacy so that People who are not in love cannot be in love. For "lazy marriage people", they must not only achieve financial independence, but also truly "wean themselves off" psychologically and get out of the comfort zone, in order to free up psychological space for seeking intimate relationships, thereby activating the entry into love and marriage. motivation. At the same time, actively expand the circle of interpersonal communication, enrich your spare time life, and take the initiative to learn skills and techniques for communicating with the opposite sex. For those who are afraid of marriage, they should look at direct or indirect negative marriage and love experiences rationally, analyze specific problems in detail, summarize failure experiences, change their thinking and perception of marriage as "extremely bad", and eliminate their fear. For those who are worried about marriage, it is necessary to set reasonable self-expectations and spouse selection standards, not to follow the trend or compare, to have a straight mind, to be based on reality, and to value the value of marriage for spiritual nourishment of both parties, such as the value of the values, interests and personalities of both parties. Compatibility and other standards, bravely pursue your own beautiful love.
Based on systematic marriage and love education, those who are afraid of marriage will not be afraid. Establish a youth marriage and love education system that integrates schools, families and communities. First, it is recommended that the education department organize marriage and love experts to design courses, incorporate marriage and love education into the ideological and political education system, and set up relevant courses at the junior high school, high school, and university levels from the three aspects of values, knowledge, and abilities. Universities and middle schools should combine classroom teaching with extracurricular activities, and combine online and offline methods to help young people form values ????that value marriage and family; popularize knowledge about gender relations and use systematic education to eliminate the fragmented cognition of the Internet. Correct irrational concepts and catastrophizing thinking about marriage and childbearing. Second, the family should play a positive role as an emotional harbor, advocate good family traditions of harmony between husband and wife, equality between men and women, and emotional harmony, enhance young people's positive experiences about marriage and love, and stimulate young people's yearning for emotional experiences such as love and marriage. Third, it is recommended that the community, together with professional social organizations and marriage and love experts, set up youth love and marriage classes, marriage and love counseling and other activities to improve the accessibility of marriage and love education and enhance the emotional management and management capabilities of young people.
Build a marriage-friendly environment so that those who want to get married can get married. First, the publicity department organizes and promotes the media, literary and art societies, cultural companies, etc. to create positive and uplifting marriage and family cultural products, organizes selection activities such as the most beautiful family and the most beautiful couple, concretizes the picture of beautiful love and happy family, and arouses young people to be based on marriage. Positive emotional experiences of family happiness.
In addition, civilized and simple "new marriage customs" should be vigorously promoted in the whole society, so that love marriages can get rid of the utilitarian color and bad customs, so that the whole society should be ashamed of "contracting marriage = economic gain", and let young people get rid of "houseless people" The internal and external pressure of not being qualified to fall in love returns to the beautiful picture of the two joining hands and starting from scratch.
The second is to give full play to the advantages of group organizations, integrate platform resources such as civil affairs departments, market institutions, and social welfare organizations, establish and improve a big data platform for marriage and dating information, and explore and develop A mobile Internet dating platform with multiple functions such as information collection and scientific matching will create a number of low-cost, highly accessible and trustworthy public welfare marriage and love service brands, and provide professional and precise marriage and love services.
Third, the government should strengthen the system design with the purpose of being "marriage-friendly" and formulate public preferential policies for renting and purchasing houses for young people of marriageable age; enterprises and institutions It is necessary to strictly protect the labor rights and interests of employees, oppose the culture of excessive overtime in the workplace, and protect employees' right to rest and leisure space; unit trade unions and *** Youth League organizations can actively organize youth friendship and social activities to enrich the leisure and cultural life of young people.
With the support of maternity supporting policies and services, those who are afraid of having children dare to get married. The first is to provide inclusive and affordable childcare services. It is recommended that the central level strengthen top-level design, issue a list of policy support, and adopt methods such as integrated childcare, social institution organization, employer self-operation, and community embedding to build a diversified, multi-level inclusive childcare service system. Systematically train childcare practitioners to provide high-quality talent support for childcare services. The government and industry associations should provide training for employees and continuously improve their professional identity. Relevant departments have strengthened the improvement and implementation of the qualification accreditation and filing management system, information disclosure system, and quality supervision and evaluation system for childcare service institutions.
The second is to improve the fertility support policy with the purpose of being "women-friendly". Improve legislation related to marriage and childbirth, extend male paternity leave, establish flexible and flexibly enforceable paid parental leave that both parents can enjoy, and guide men to assume more parenting responsibilities. Change the existing "employer responsibility system" maternity insurance cost-bearing model. On the basis of all employers paying maternity insurance premiums, strengthen government coordination and promote social responsibility for maternity costs, thereby reducing the employer's maternity insurance burden. , alleviate gender discrimination in the workplace.
The third is to promote family education guidance and create a scientific and rational view of parenting education. Through publicity and education, parent classes and other channels, we should actively promote the new concept of talents and new family education concepts, oppose excessive refinement and comparison-based parenting and education, eliminate the "jump start" phenomenon in education, and reduce parenting costs and educational anxiety.