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The Paper: Why the Price of a Bride Keeps Rising

The Paper published an analysis report on the purchase of brides in China’s villages. Chinese, especially peasants, prefer sons to daughters. Because of China’s "one-child" policy over the past few decades, this view has contributed to a higher proportion of males than females in China.

"The development of a nationwide marriage market has resulted in an outflow of females from Western and Central China [because they are able to marry in Eastern China which is more developed economically]. The imbalance between males to females means that, for the groom, the cost of getting married has continued to rise."

"Nowadays, a girl’s preference for a husband is someone who is the only child in the family, has money, and has relatively young parents. In that case, her in-laws can continue to work and pass their earnings on to their only son [and, of course, the girl as well]. They can also provide free babysitting services for the young couple’s baby."

Source: The Paper Online, February 12, 2016
http://www.thepaper.cn/baidu.jsp?contid=1431178