Japan vs China (Dating, Love, Marriage)

[天空神]

I had a question for those of you who are familiar with the traditions of either one or both of these countries. My Fiance is Chinese and grew up in Xi'an and she always tells me how if she hadn't met me soon her family would begin to worry she'd be a "leftover". I know that term is thrown around a lot, but it got me thinking about other Asian countries, specifically Japan

 

Reason being, I've heard Japan and the marriage rate there is dropping dramatically. Not only that but apparently their population is actually expected to decrease significantly over the next 50 years

 

The point i'm trying to get at is, I find it interesting how two countries so close, so rooted in tradition have gone in such different paths. The women in China desperately want to get married it seems like (sometimes just out of pressure) while women in Japan don't seem to really care all that much. How did it get to that point exactly?

[耳耳语语]

I'm not familiar with this topic, just some references here :

* This article say this phenomenon of "leftover women" is a worldwide tendency :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng_nu#Other_countries

* But these two articles tends to point out that the traditional role expectations remain much stronger in China :
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/chinas-leftovers-are-rejects-in-a-mans-world

" men either discriminated against them because of their achievements, or expected them to spend more time doing housework in order to make their lives together a success – often at the expense of their jobs."
http://www.dw.com/en/why-fewer-japanese-are-seeking-marriage/a-19349576
"Japan has also seen a shift in attitudes among the sexes, with young women increasingly seen as career-orientated and putting their own desires ahead of the need for a family - a situation that sociologists here say has turned them into "carnivores."

Men, on the other hand, have become more willing to put up with unhappiness in their careers merely to hang on to their jobs as well as being less domineering toward women, making them "herbivores."

 

(Also I wonder if the gender ratio problem in China (Chinese men outnumber women by 33 millions) could one day change this situation ?)

[Lu]

From what I've read, a shortage of women actually leads to more oppression of said women (unfortunately and counterintuitively).

 

China and Japan may be close and both rooted in tradition, but their history of the past 200-150 years is vastly different, and I think those differences, and the resulting current society, explain a lot of the marriage difference. Also, I wonder if Japanese women don't get that pressure too? After all, 'christmas cake', from what I know, is a Japanese concept ('women are like Christmas cake: after 25, nobody wants').

[Shelley]

I don't think it just a Chinese/Japanese thing. here in the UK you can be an Old Maid if you are unmarried, or "left on the shelf" if not married by about 30ish. Nowadays it is less of a problem, but some stigma still exists, and if you are married and don't have kids that's not good either.

 

I think it is a biological thing, in the past life expectancy was less than today and so relatively 30 or 40 was old, you want to get married while you are young and healthy, get producing kids early so they can grow up and look after you in your "old age" of 40-50.

 

Not being married equates to not being wanted because you have some fault either physical or mental, real or just perceived, so getting married is like proving you are ok and wanted.

 

[ZhangKaiRong]

I have some Japanese friends (women) studying for their MBA here in my city. All of them are around 30 with quite extensive work experience, and neither of them are married (actually, one of them will get married once she's graduated). They told me that it's quite pressuring for them to attend social events in Japan or overseas when Japanese people are present, as conversations - surprisingly - turn into the "why-aren't-you-married-look-at-your-age" topic quickly (especially on weddings). It's absolutely not a Chinese only thing.

[天空神]

Well they're not married going into their 30s though. That part isn't similar to the Chinese outlook on marriage. I don't know any Native Chinese girl in her 30s who isn't married and I know a lot of them through my fiancé

 

 

[Lu]

5 hours ago, ZhangKaiRong said:

the "why-aren't-you-married-look-at-your-age" topic

Really, I wonder what on earth people expect for an answer to that. Either the woman just hasn't met Mr Right yet, or there is a tragic backstory. The first option is boring, the second not suitable if you don't know the woman well (and if you're asking this question at a social event, you don't know her well).

 

It's like asking someone why they don't have children. Of course people are curious, but really, there is no way the answer will make anyone in the conversation happier. (Although I have to say I once heard it answered to everyone's satisfaction: the woman said she and her husband were about to get a dog, and how that was great because they had wanted a dog for a long time. Said this with a word that is usually used for wanting children.)

[Shelley]

How many is a lot of them? What percentage of all the girls of marriageable age is that? I don't think that you know enough people to come to any conclusions.

 

I know a few Chinese girls that are here and studying and aren't worried about rushing into marriage.

 

I do believe it is changing, slowing, but it is changing.

 

@Lu I have chosen not to have children, it was difficult when I was younger but all my family and friends have come to terms with it. Personally my partner and I decided not to have children because we feel there are too many people in the world and I have a life I want to live and things I want to do that doesn't include children. The most common response was "oh how selfish, you don't want to share your life with children". I think sometimes people who have children are equally selfish, I hear them say " I want a baby" not "I would like to bring a new life into the world, nurture and teach it and hope it has a good life"

Anyway end of rant:)

[天空神]

Well of course it's generalizations. I know all together probably close to 20 couples. My fiancé has me traveling in her circle a lot. Most are between 25-30. Obviously there's some Chinese girls who aren't married. It's rare to see though and they're usually very career oriented women 

 

To me, it just seems like Japanese girls are less worried about marriage. At lead to me it appears that way. It seems they have a more western outlook on marriage

[Flickserve]

5 hours ago, 天空神 said:

To me, it just seems like Japanese girls are less worried about marriage. At lead to me it appears that way. It seems they have a more western outlook on marriage

 

Japan is ahead of China in personal income. Rest assured with increasing numbers of educated ladies and their rising wages, the differences between the behaviour towards marriage will decrease.

[天空神]

In China you mean? Yeah probably I don't doubt it. I think the trend worldwide is moving against marriage

[耳耳语语]

On 12/7/2017 at 3:31 PM, Lu said:

From what I've read, a shortage of women actually leads to more oppression of said women (unfortunately and counterintuitively).

Oh... Do you have any explanation or source about this phenomenon ?

[Lu]

33 minutes ago, 耳耳语语 said:

Do you have any explanation or source about this phenomenon ?

I'm afraid I don't remember where I read it (several places). If I have time today I'll see if I can google up something, but feel free to do that yourself as well.

 

As to an explanation: it actually makes sense, because when women are rarer, they become more valuable and the men who 'have' them (fathers, husbands) want to keep them away from others. As an illustration, look at what happens in the Chinese countryside. The shortage of women there has not lead to rural women sitting back and selecting the best mates while giggling, but to rural men mail-ordering or kidnapping women. In China as a whole, women are not lauded for being picky, but chastised if they dare being unmarried by the time they're 30, or for demanding a house or a car. Some five years ago, a law was passed that said that the spouse who made the first downpayment on the couple's house could keep the house in case of divorce, a move that was widely criticised for disadvantaging women: often, the man (or his family) would make the first downpayment, so that he 'owned' a house and was thus eligible to marry, and then the couple would make joint payments once married. But in case of divorce, the wife would lose all that. This is a way of limiting women's choices, of making it more difficult to get out of a marriage.

 

Or look at this. It's Wikipedia, but look at that first map: the pink countries, with more men than women, are not exactly known for being good places for women.

 

@Shelley, I agree with you. And I also feel ranty about this subject.

[耳耳语语]

OMG, you are right, that's quite horrible...

 

On the one hand, chinese women with high social status could be seen in a better position to pick their husband
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/06/05/gender-imbalance-china-one-child-law-backfired-men-336435.html

 

On the other hand, for the majority of chinese women, violence and traffic are growing, to the extend that "the sex imbalance may account for up to one-sixth of the overall rise in crime".
https://thewire.in/74070/too-many-men-too-few-women/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China#Sex_Trafficking

 

 

[Lu]

'(...) although the ‘dyadic power’ of women is expected to be higher when they are in shorter supply, Indian women in districts with high sex ratios experience more physical abuse and a higher degree of control than those in areas with better sex ratios. Their research could be further extended to explore a repeated ethnographic finding — that men in such areas exercise greater surveillance over their wives and display a higher degree of suspicion if wives venture out to work. In some high sex ratio Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, subjecting the woman to constant childbearing is used as a mode of exercising control over her. It is obvious that control over women’s fertility becomes further intensified when she is expected to produce sons and not daughters. Ahlawat’s chapter in this volume makes the point that cross-region brides in the Indian state of Haryana, who are brought from far-off states consequent to the local bride shortage, are subjected to greater domestic violence as they lack natal family support structures, which act as a shield for local brides.'

 

Yah, this is what I meant.

 

Not so sure about the Newsweek article. From what I know, there's still a pretty big stigma against divorced women, and it's much more difficult for them to remarry than it is for men. And here's a bit about the 2011 marriage law, protecting (usually) men's assets and making divorce more difficult for women.

[dtcamero]

On 2017/7/12 at 8:23 AM, 天空神 said:

while women in Japan don't seem to really care all that much

japanese women also face huge social pressure to marry early. there's a (pretty horrible) phrase in japanese that a woman after 25 is like a christmas cake after the 25th, nobody wants either... 

pretty much every japanese woman i've met in the west had moved there to escape social pressure to marry quickly.

[天空神]

Well they're certainly more relaxed about it. Maybe they do want to marry, but they have a good poker face about it

[Lu]

I was actually discussing this with a few people recently, including a Japanese man who is in his early thirties and single. Do you get pressure? I asked him. He said no, or maybe a little, but that it would be worse if he were a woman.

[dtcamero]

ya the pressure is only really on the women. men can get older and as long as they have money are still able to date attractive young women. 

 

relationships in asia are often quite transactional in that way.

obviously you have these weird couples in the west as well, but they are really common in china in particular.

[37womaninCA]

This is a good topic. I would like to share my story. I was worried before I met my husband at 29. All/most of my friends were married at that time. I felt so lonely. No one had time to go for lunch/dinner with me. And I worried the biological clock. I wanted to have babies before I reached the 35 high-risk-pregnancy point. Now I have an unhappy marriage. We are arguing in front of kids all the time. 

Before I met my husband, I blamed the society. Why do we all have to get married? If not all of my friends got married, I wouldn't have felt so lonely. Just like in elementary. We all had friends to play with. I feel many of us are forced to get married. 

Yes, being married has many advantages too. Like two incomes, shared houseworks, have someone to talk to, to dine out with. 

But once you are in a marriage, you will find he doesn't like the food you eat. When you ask him to put up the curtains, he would postpone and postpone. After having babies, we were both exhasted everyday after nursing, cleaning, cooking, working and the husband would complain you neglect him.