婚姻挤压与农村代际关系变动

Marriage Squeeze and Changes in Rural Inter-generational Relations

日渐严峻的婚姻挤压对我国社会尤其是农村代际关系产生了广泛且深远的影响。我国农村的男性婚姻挤压表现为初婚市场和再婚市场的双重婚姻挤压。初婚市场的婚姻挤压使农村大龄男性青年面临结婚难问题,不仅产生大量光棍,而且婚姻成本过高;再婚市场的婚姻挤压则使女性掌握更大的婚姻主导权,已婚男性面临巨大的离婚风险和再婚困难。在代际责任的作用下,婚姻挤压带来的男性婚配困难进一步转化为父母的困难,从而使代际关系在交换关系和支配关系上均发生了变动。一方面,为了子代能够顺利完婚并保持婚姻稳定,农村父母不仅不得不为子代支付高昂的婚姻成本,而且对子代婚后的支持也更加刚性化和长期化,从而使已经倾斜的交换关系更加失衡;另一方面,为了稳定子代的婚姻关系,农村父母不得不主动或被动地降低自身的家庭地位,并让渡自身的权力甚至权利,从而使已经翻转的亲代地位进一步下降。扭曲的代际关系使农村中老年父母遭受着精神和经济上的双重负担。面对结构性压力,他们自身无力改变,亟须国家和社会进行干预。具体而言,可从推进移风易俗、重塑家庭伦理和营造社区风气等方面着手。

The increasingly severe marriage squeeze has had a broad and far-reaching impact on our society,especially on rural inter-generational relations.The male marriage squeeze in rural areas in our country demonstrates a dual marriage squeeze phenomenon in both the first marriage market and the remarriage market.The marriage squeeze in the first marriage market makes it difficult for the older male youth in rural areas to get married,which not only produces a large number of bachelors,but also causes a high cost of marriage.The marriage squeeze in the remarriage market makes women more dominant in marriage and married men face great divorce risks and remarriage difficulties.Under the action of inter-generational responsibility,the difficulty of male match caused by marriage squeeze is further transformed into the difficulty of parents,which makes the inter-generational relationship change in exchange relationship and dominance relationship.On the one hand,in order for their children to get married successfully and maintain marriage stability,rural parents have to not only pay high marriage costs for their children,but also provide more rigid and long-term support for their children after marriage,thus making the already tilted exchange relationship even more unbalanced.On the other hand,in order to stabilize the marital relationship of their children,rural parents have to actively or passively reduce their family status and transfer their power and even rights,thus further reducing the reversed parental status.The distorted inter-generational relationship makes rural middle-aged and elderly parents suffer from both mental and economic burdens.In the face of structural pressures,they are powerless to change themselves and need state and social intervention.To be specific,interventions can be started from such three aspects as promoting changing customs,rebuilding family ethics and building community atmosphere.