Marital Decisions Among Chinese Single Youth: Identifying Latent Groups and Sociocultural Correlates

The marriage and family patterns in China are undergoing significant changes, with younger generations exhibiting increasingly diverse marital decisions. Based on an investigation of 644 single young adults and interviews with 11 of them, this study identified latent groups of marital decisions and explored how domestic and global factors influence their decisions. The results of the quantitative analysis revealed four latent groups: the resister group, the activist group, the delayed group, and the common group. Familism beliefs, familiarity with marital policies, and satisfaction with marital policies affect the marital decisions of single young adults. The qualitative analysis supplemented the evidence on the influence of global structural and cross-cultural factors on marital decisions. In contemporary China, young people need more policy and service support to cope with various challenges in marriage and family.