Delayed marriages have major implications
Asia traditionally has been characterised as having universal marriage — defined as fewer than 5% of the population having not married by age 50 — but rapid economic development has led to changes in the trend in some regions.
“More and more people are beginning to delay marriage,” said Gavin Jones, a former professor of sociology and director of the JY Pillay Comparative Asia Research Centre at the Global Asia Institute at the National University of Singapore.
“Marriage was traditionally seen as a must and thus most girls were married off in their teens to a husband chosen by their parents,” Dr Jones told Asia Focus.
“In South Asia, the girl had often never met the husband before the wedding day. By contrast, in East and Southeast Asia the girl has more say in the matter.”
The trend is, nevertheless, diverging as East and Southeast Asia have seen the demise of universal marriage while South Asia has persisting levels of marriage.
A study by The Economist notes that around 30 years ago, only 2% of women were single in most Asian countries. But the share of unmarried women in their 30s has risen by 20% or more in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
In Thailand, the number of women entering their 40s without being married increased from 7% in 1980 to 12% in 2000. The opposite is true in South Asia, where 98% of men and women tie the knot.
Delayed marriage in East and Southeast Asia can be linked to sustained and rapid economic development which includes advancing educational levels for women and changing employment patterns.
A United Nations study indicates that people in wealthy countries with high GDP per capita tend to marry later than those in underdeveloped or developing countries — although the relationship between income and marriage is not fixed.
Furthermore, as women no longer need to rely on a husband for financial support and find that their careers can conflict with their child-rearing duties, many East and Southeast Asian women are choosing to delay marriage; some never marry at all.
The social consequences of such a change, however, are vast. Asian cultures place a heavy reliance on the family to support the elderly and a delay in marriage — and inevitably a declining rate of birth — will greatly affect the system.
This can already be seen in China, exacerbated by the one-child policy of the government. The country faces what experts call a 4:2:1 problem: the burden of taking care of four grandparents and two parents for every one working Chinese. Governments and other agencies thus have to step in to provide additional support.
Singapore is looking to reverse the trend by encouraging couples to marry and have children. The Ministry of Social and Family Development offers marriage preparation programmes and marriage counselling, said Natalie Lim, assistant manager of the communications and international relations division.
As well, a “baby bonus” programme that helps ease the financial burden of raising children is part of an enhanced marriage and parenthood package, including a cash gift and contribution to the Child Development Account.
In contrast to East and Southeast Asian countries, the traditional arranged marriage systems of South Asia have shown great resilience in the face of economic and social change. For one thing, the development of education for women has been slower and the result is a nearly universal rate of marriage.
While some young people are free to choose a spouse or at least have more say in the match, parents still remain heavily involved.
Similar arranged marriages used to exist in East and Southeast Asia but they have collapsed due to much more advanced levels of women’s education and career prospects.
“Men are often reluctant to marry someone who has better education or makes more money than they do,” Dr Jones pointed out. “To add to these factors, effective matchmaking procedures have not emerged to replace the earlier arranged marriage systems.”
Arranged marriages are fairly rare in western countries where the focus is on finding your own partner independently without any family interference.
“The influence of Hollywood films and certain interpretations of freedom and equality and feminism lead people to run away at the thought of an arranged marriage as it seems to be a breach of their freedom,” according to Think Ethnic, a platform devoted to promoting understanding of the growing multicultural population in the UK and globally.
Looking to the future in Asia, Dr Jones said: “There is no sign that the trend toward delayed marriage and non-marriage in East and Southeast Asia has finished, so further delays can be expected.”
Even in South Asia, he said, economic growth and increasing female education could put more pressure on the tradition of parent-arranged marriages.
“Men are often reluctant to marry someone who has better education or makes more money than they do” GAVIN JONES Sociologist