Chapter 7: Education, Marriage Cohorts, and Different Pathways to Marriage in East Asian Societies

The literature on marriage formation neglects different pathways to marriage. This study focuses on arranged marriage, introduced marriage, and self-initiated marriage as three main marriage pathways in East Asia and examines how people’s marriage pathway choices are associated with education and change over time in mainland China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Using data from the East Asian Social Survey, this study finds that education is associated with fewer arranged marriages and more self-initiated marriages and that more recent marriage cohorts also witness a decline in arranged marriages and an increase in self-initiated marriages. However, how introduced marriage is associated with education and change over time varies in four East Asian societies. The findings support the “developmentalism-marriage” framework that developmental idealism leads to modern marital practices.