Only Children in China Increasingly Prefer Marrying Other Only Children
· World · Hindustan Times, The Economist
Young adults in China who grew up as only children are showing a distinct preference for marrying partners who also have no siblings. Data from a working paper by Fangqi Wen of Ohio State University indicates that only children are 18.4 percentage points more likely to marry other only children than their peers with siblings. Matchmaking organisers in cities like Shanghai report that many individuals explicitly reject candidates who have brothers or sisters to avoid complex family dynamics. Only children often view sibling relationships as a burden on their partner's time and financial resources, fearing potential inheritance disputes or obligations to extended family. While China's one-child policy was in effect from 1979 to 2015, it was not uniformly enforced, leaving only children as a minority of the current university-age population.
Why it matters
This trend reflects a growing rift in social values between families of different sizes, potentially reshaping marriage markets and long-term inheritance patterns in China.
Read the original report — Hindustan Times
Join us on Telegram
Breaking news the moment it lands. At 10,000 members we ship the Android app.