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Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

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Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#31

Post by sexydefinesher »

draugadrotten wrote: post #25
quotemstr wrote: post #3

Markets always appear next to scarcity, and laws against market operations always drive transactions underground, because supply and demand must be made to meet somehow. Without expressing approval per se of what's happening in China, I do have to express a total lack of surprise that people react to scarcity in one area in the same way they react to scarcity in every other. Extreme gender imbalances are societally d…

> Extreme gender imbalances are societally destabilizing Imagine what will happen in Northern Europe after the large influx of asian single men who will want to marry in a few years. China - 114 men for 100 women (wikipedia) Sweden - 123 men for 100 women (BBC) https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35444173

As stated in the article, most of these men/youth have the opportunity for bringing over their families which would smooth-en out the gender imbalances.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#32

Post by rectang »

beerlord wrote: post #6

I think the title is misleading: its not really marriage costs, its a payment to the bride/parents to account for the gender disparity in China caused by sex-selective abortions. These bride costs should be allowed to climb infinitely, because it will serve as an incentive for families to have girls - and actually sex-selectively abort boys. Unfortunately we are seeing all this in the West, where Asian migrants to co…

> These bride costs should be allowed to climb infinitely, because it will serve as an incentive for families to have girls

Wow, a market correction to counteract societal undervaluation of females. If it could happen that would be profoundly constructive, but attitudes about gender are durable. It's not hard to imagine that instead of letting the price rise to incentivize an increase in supply, we could see see price fixing and rationing instead: the exertion of greater control over scarce resources and backwards progress in women's rights.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#34

Post by sigi45 »

131sdfdasf wrote: post #13
hkai wrote: post #2

I am planning to hopefully marry my girlfriend in the next couple of years and her parents are already asking for "at least a small amount like 10,000 USD", because "I'm white anyway", meaning I must be rich. Taking into account all the abuse she had to take from them, and their lazy and useless way of life, they're not getting a penny from me. Many people though feel powerless to resist and ruin themselves financial…

How does $10k mean they think you are rich? That's chump change. They are being generous.

I can live with 10k 10 Month, in Munich. Money for 10 Month is never chump change.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#35

Post by kzrdude »

131sdfdasf wrote: post #13
hkai wrote: post #2

I am planning to hopefully marry my girlfriend in the next couple of years and her parents are already asking for "at least a small amount like 10,000 USD", because "I'm white anyway", meaning I must be rich. Taking into account all the abuse she had to take from them, and their lazy and useless way of life, they're not getting a penny from me. Many people though feel powerless to resist and ruin themselves financial…

How does $10k mean they think you are rich? That's chump change. They are being generous.

To factor in, is it something that can be paid and then you forget about ever having economic ties again? Or will paying it simply create an expectation of getting more down the line?

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#36

Post by williamdclt »

puranjay wrote: post #28

I would like to see an equivalent study on Indian weddings. All the people I know who got married recently spent between $50-$100k on their wedding. My own wedding was about $50k. Food alone was nearly $20k (over 1200 guests were invited - which was on the low end)

Genuine question: how is it possible to invite 1200 people? I can't imagine that you and your partner know 600 people each, I'd have a hard time finding 100 people to invite if I needed too

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#37

Post by richardknop »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #20

"they’ll likely drive bride-price transactions underground — and possibly to new heights as parents demand a risk premium for paying up." Eh? Wouldn't parents demand a risk discount for paying up?

Supply and demand. Demand is much higher than supply therefor parents of the girl have a lot of leverage. Price will go up.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#38

Post by chinamarriage »

hkai wrote: post #2

I am planning to hopefully marry my girlfriend in the next couple of years and her parents are already asking for "at least a small amount like 10,000 USD", because "I'm white anyway", meaning I must be rich. Taking into account all the abuse she had to take from them, and their lazy and useless way of life, they're not getting a penny from me. Many people though feel powerless to resist and ruin themselves financial…

$10,000 is typical for bride-price in China and only a bit higher than average annual Chinese income. The Chinese do save more than 30% of their income so that is about three years of savings for average earners in China, which is quite high for them admittedly. If you work in a Western country and have a decent job (otherwise why should their daughter marry you anyway?) you can save $10,000 in less than two years. Many Chinese bachelors can do better than that, either they can command or commit more resources. That is along what they think.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#39

Post by throw930336 »

Macuyiko wrote: post #30
namanyayg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like this is a downvoted opinion, but I concur. Strange really, how much months/years of expenses would $10k get their family? Not much more than a few months I assume?

Depends. In rural China this is still a lot of money.

Not really. If they were really, really frugal, the most I could see that lasting is 2 years.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#40

Post by throw930336 »

quotemstr wrote: post #3

Markets always appear next to scarcity, and laws against market operations always drive transactions underground, because supply and demand must be made to meet somehow. Without expressing approval per se of what's happening in China, I do have to express a total lack of surprise that people react to scarcity in one area in the same way they react to scarcity in every other. Extreme gender imbalances are societally d…

It's not too late.

China is lucky in that they border a country with the opposite problem [1]:

> One feature of the Russian-Chinese relationship seemed especially telling: Cross-border marriages are overwhelmingly between Chinese men and Russian women. Much of this has to do with demographics—Russia has a surplus of women, while China has too many men.

In addition, the demographics issue might be overstated as many of the 'missing women' started to be 'found' once they turned 18 and needed to officially register with the government [2]:

> The researchers believe local government officials informally worked with farmers and acknowledged that they couldn't fully enforce the one-child policy. Instead they made tacit agreements in allowing families to have extra children in exchange for social stability in their communities. The cadres, or local governments, would then under-report “out of plan” births that ultimately influenced the national population statistics.

> To supplement the qualitative data, the researchers then examined Chinese population data by cohort, and they compared the number of children born in 1990 with the number of 20-year-old Chinese men and women in 2010. In that cohort, they discovered 4 million additional people, and of those there were approximately 1 million more women than men.

> "If we go over a course of 25 years, it's possible there are about 25 million women in the statistics that weren't there at birth," Kennedy said.

1. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/f...

2. https://news.ku.edu/2016/11/22/study-finds-chinas-missing-gi...

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