SEOUL and TAIPEI, August 20, 2011 (The Economist): Asian women, like those in the West, are marrying much later these days–some not at all. In combination with the selective abortion of female fetuses, this trend is producing a bride shortage that will destroy Asia’s tradition of universal marriage and place great strains on society.
Only 30 years ago, just 2% of women in most Asian countries were single. But in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, the average woman now remains single until age 29 or 30. In Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, 15-20% of women aged 35-39 have never married. Those who delay until their 40s will almost certainly never marry or have children. They have not, however, followed the West into increased cohabitation or single-parent families. East Asian women (on average) are now bearing fewer than 1.6 children during their lifetime, down precipitously from 5.3 in the late 1960s.
Women’s education is a big factor in these changing patterns. In Asia, rates of non-marriage rise at every stage of education. A 2003 Beijing study found half of women whose income indicated university education were unmarried. Half of these said they did not need to marry because they were financially independent. Also, many men shy away from a woman whose education exceeds their own. This concentrates the inability to find a spouse in two groups: men with no education and women with a lot.
Clearly, the idea of marriage holds few attractions for a well-educated Asian woman. The housework, child care and aged parents are regarded as her responsibility, even though her outside job–which she is loathe to abandon–may be as demanding as that of her husband. In Japan, wives with full-time jobs work another 30 hours per week at home, compared to the three hours or so that their husbands help out. (In America and Europe, this disparity is less extreme.)
Even in China and India, the mean age of marriage is rising–as is the divorce rate, especially among the young. And the selective abortion of female fetuses means that by 2030, some 660 million Chinese and Indian men aged 20-50 will be unmarried simply because their brides were never born. Already brides are being imported into some areas; 44% of farmers in South Jeolia province who married in 2009 took a foreign bride.
The full article, at source, is long but well worth reading.