OBJECTIVE

This article investigates marital sorting by household registration status () and education in contemporary urban China, paying special attention to individuals who have achieved rural-to-urban mobility before marriage.

BACKGROUND

Existing theoretical frameworks of assortative mating have highlighted economic resources and cultural matching as two key dimensions. These two frameworks place different emphasis on individuals' achieved versus ascriptive characteristics, and hold different implications for understanding the link between marital sorting patterns and social openness/closure. With a focus on converters, this study examines the relative importance of achieved versus ascriptive traits in China's marriage market and contributes to the evaluation of the two frameworks.

METHOD

This study adopts a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative analysis uses the harmonic mean marriage function to analyze the nationally representative 2006 China General Social Survey. The qualitative data consist of 115 in-depth interviews collected in two Chinese metropolitan areas between 2016 and 2017.

RESULTS

Quantitative results showed that converters and urban-born individuals both had the highest propensity of marrying a spouse of the same trajectory. Qualitative results further revealed the gap between converters and their urban-born peers to be hierarchical. Although both groups emphasized the importance of shared values and habitus in evaluating prospective partners, urban-born individuals regarded converters as a culturally distinct and less desirable option.

CONCLUSION

The findings highlight the power of cultural matching in China's urban marriage market. converters' rural origin remains visible and acts as a source of lasting symbolic distinction despite adulthood status attainment.