Yu Jieyang.
Ph.D. student, School of Law, Jilin University).
First published Tencent News @ Xinxiang) When I went home for research this year, I found that there are many older young people in my hometown who are not in bad condition, and even many of them are still college and general education, and have received good cultural education, but they have not successfully started a family. Compared with four or five of my primary school classmates who have graduated from junior high school and have never found a formal job, and are older and unmarried, some of my primary school classmates who entered the society after junior high school have successfully bought a house, married a wife and had children by virtue of entering the society early. In contrast, the villagers' evaluation of this group of second-generation agricultural college students has gradually changed from "scholars" to "unproductive people", and even raised the question of "what is the use of reading so many books". Why do second-generation agricultural college students who strive to change their fate through reading come to a situation where they can't get high or low? Why is it difficult for second-generation agricultural college students to settle down and start a career? Why was the second generation of farmers who didn't read so many books able to settle down smoothly? Next, let's first briefly understand their situation through the case, and then try to find the cause behind it.
Case 1: A Zhen in 1994 is 30 years old this year, and in 2013, A Zhen was admitted to a junior college in the province and chose a mechanical major that seems to be relatively easy to employ. Ah Zhen graduated in 2017, and at first he was looking for a counterpart job, going to Zhengzhou to enter the factory as an apprentice, but I don't know if the master with him was too strict Ah Zhen resigned not long after he worked. Since then, Ah Zhen has started his entrepreneurial journey, because there is no one at home to guide Ah Zhen's entrepreneurial road is extremely bumpy, and after so many years, not only did he not earn money, but he also lost the "wife book" that his parents saved for him. Although Ah Zhen is also on a blind date now, he is obviously at the bottom of the local marriage market because he has no money and no power, and seeing that there are fewer and fewer girls of the right age and the cost of marriage is getting higher and higher, Ah Zhen's hope of finding a suitable partner is getting smaller and smaller.
Case 2: In 1995, Ah Xiao and Ah Zhen were in a similar situation, but Ah Xiao chose a liberal arts major that year, and was later admitted to a second college in the province. After graduating from the undergraduate school in 2018, Ah Xiao originally planned to take the postgraduate examination, but he failed to be admitted for two years, and after failing the postgraduate examination, Ah Xiao decided to go to Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, to find a job, but the result was not very ideal, so he could only find a private education and training institution to work first. At the same time, because Ah Xiao usually works in Zhengzhou, he can't get in touch with the girls at home, and Ah Xiao is at a disadvantage in the marriage market in Zhengzhou.
Case 3: In 1996, Ah Hao also chose a liberal arts major that year, and during his study, Ah Hao was a standard student, and he was successfully admitted to a college in the province in the year of the college entrance examination. After graduating in 2018, Ah Hao first wanted to go to a big city and chose a company in Shanghai to work, but because he couldn't take root, Ah Hao chose to return to his hometown after two years. Due to Hao's poor family conditions, he has not yet bought a house in the county, and it is difficult to pay the rising bride price with Hao's own salary. Ah Hao is now thinking about looking for a relationship, and when he enters the next county public high school recruitment, he will have a stable teaching position, and he will have more advantages in the local marriage market.
Case 4: Ah Jin is different from Ah Xiao, Ah Hao, and Ah Zhen above, he was born in 90 and is just 34 years old this year. After graduating from junior high school, Ah Jin began to work in the local real estate industry in 2015. According to Ajin's words, the housing prices in the local county just soared in 17-19 years, when the market was excellent, everyone was buying up and not buying down, and they didn't have to ask for customers, and this customer didn't buy his own next customer. Ah Jin successfully saved his first pot of gold in those years, and bought a house with his knowledge of the industry. Although Ah Jin is not highly educated, he has a house and money, and has strong social skills, and after several blind dates, he successfully got a girlfriend and started a family. Ah Jin said that he didn't look so much at his mate choice, and the most important thing was to live a down-to-earth life.
Case 5: Haotian also graduated from junior high school in 1998, and after graduation, he first went to the army, and then went to a fire brigade in Xinjiang after coming out of the army. However, the year before last, in order to get married, Haotian quit his job in the fire brigade and concentrated on going home on a blind date. Although Haotian is a rural baby, his family conditions are okay, and his parents have opened an embroidery workshop in the town, and his annual income is more than 100,000 yuan. Haotian said that after he came back, his family began to frantically introduce himself to a blind date, because the family's social circle is relatively large, so he introduced a lot of blind dates, Haotian has 40 50 girls at home, and the blind date is basically paid by himself. After rounds of blind dates, Haotian finally found a suitable partner, the two were engaged a few years ago, and the woman moved to the man's house. Haotian's parents said that they would start a family first and then start a business, and he would be stable when he got married, and let him slowly take over the family's business in the future, which would be regarded as a son inheriting his father's business.
Case 6: Feng Tsai in 2000 got married earlier than Haotian, Feng Tsai also graduated from junior high school, and after graduation, he groped in various industries, and although the job he was looking for was not decent, it also helped him make a lot of contacts, and these friends introduced girls to him one after another. Feng Zai's parents have been setting up food stalls in the county in the early years, looking at the county's continuous housing prices, Feng Zai's parents decisively bought a small property right house the year before last. Later, Feng Tsai met his wife with the matchmaking of a friend and got married. Now 24-year-old Feng Tsai is already a young dad, Feng Tsai said that since having a son, he has suddenly matured and is more motivated to work.
Through the case, it can be seen that the reason why Ah Zhen, Ah Xiao, Ah Hao, who graduated from university, and Ah Jin, Haotian and Feng Tsai, who graduated from junior high school, show the difference in "fate" is that there are family reasons, employment environment reasons and personal reasons.
The first is family reasons. Even if they are the second generation of farmers, there are differences in family backgrounds between these six people, Feng Tsai and Haotian belong to a class of people with better family resource endowments, and their parents can help them accumulate relatively rich marriage resources, including but not limited to blind date networks, houses, cars, bride prices, work networks, etc., with the support of their parents, Feng Tsai and Haotian are not highly educated, but they can maintain a certain competitive advantage in the local marriage market, and the remaining four people belong to the general second generation of farmers, Their parents did not provide them with sufficient resources and social capital, and they all had to start from scratch.
The second is the reason for the employment environment. Indeed, compared with Ah Jin, who entered the society early, Ah Zhen, Ah Xiao and Ah Hao, who entered the society late after reading for a few more years, are facing a more severe employment environment. To some extent, Ah Jin belongs to a wave of lucky people who have eaten the dividends of the industry, so he was able to rise to the wind with nothing and accumulate his first pot of gold. Ah Zhen, Ah Xiao and Ah Hao are different, firstly, the overall employment environment has been quietly changing when they graduate, and the suitable jobs are gradually decreasing, and secondly, under the guidance of the words of "workers and capitalists", they all want to start their own businesses and become bosses to make money, and are unwilling to make money for others, but entrepreneurship is risky, and they have almost no room for trial and error without family background.
In addition to the differences in the employment environment, there are also differences between local and non-local employment. For Ah Zhen, Ah Xiao and Ah Hao, their studies are basically completed in the provincial capital, and the first choice when looking for a job is naturally the provincial capital city or the first-tier city, but their education and salary level can not help them gain enough competitive advantage in the big city to let them take root in the big city smoothly, but after returning to the small county town, they are facing the reconstruction of social relations, and they are undoubtedly not familiar with the people and sophistication of their hometown after studying abroad for a long time. Therefore, if they choose to work in other places, although they have a circle of familiar classmates and friends, they have no competitive advantage in the work and blind date market, and if they choose local employment, they will have to spend time and cost to re-embed themselves in the county's interpersonal relationship and learn the sophistication of the people in the county.
Finally, there are personal reasons. Perhaps because of the high degree of education, Ah Zhen, Ah Xiao, and Ah Hao, who have a higher level of education, have more modern expectations for marriage and family, although they are on a blind date, they are still looking forward to entering the love mode through blind dates, and at the same time, the marriage they look forward to must be based on the love of both parties, and the life after marriage needs to have sufficient material security, continue to fall in love, and the parenting ideas for the offspring also show a tendency to refine parenting. This kind of modern marriage and family expectation is not wrong, but somewhat idealistic, if they want to implement their marriage and family expectations will need to struggle for many years, but this may cause them to miss their best marriage window, and it is increasingly difficult to meet the rising cost of marriage, so as to further fall behind in the local marriage market.
For Ah Jin, Feng Tsai and Haotian, who graduated from junior high school, their concept of mate selection is more traditional and more pragmatic, from the beginning of the blind date, they have made it clear that they are looking for a "down-to-earth" woman, and the marriage model they hope to construct is the "life" model, and both men and women still continue the gender division of labor of "male protagonist outside and female protagonist inside", under this marriage concept, they "enter" marriage psychology threshold is lower, and they will not linger in the marriage market for too long. At the same time, with the blessing of their parents, they will even choose strategies such as "early marriage" to enter the local marriage market in advance and lock in a suitable female partner.
Parents say "start a family first and then start a business", this sentence not only lists the order of starting a family, but also points out the function of starting a family - that is, after becoming a family, people will be embedded in the organized relationship structure from the unstable atomized individual state, and realize the connection between the family and the kinship network. At the same time, starting a family also means that the individual moves from youth to adulthood, in this process, the individual gradually realizes from focusing on rights to focusing on responsibilities and obligations, from focusing on self to focusing on others, and the individual will not fall into nihilism after becoming a family, and will be more stable and responsible, and more motivated to struggle. However, the reason why the second generation of farmers will start a business in advance is also trying to accumulate resources for marriage through their own efforts, that is to say, the purpose of the struggle is to point to the conclusion of marriage, but as mentioned above, affected by family resources and employment environment, the "industry" of the second generation of agricultural college students cannot be quickly established in a short time, which makes them easy to miss their family window in the process of exploring careers; The tension between the rising cost of marriage, the gradually deformed local marriage market and their "idealized" marriage and family expectations will also increase, and the possibility of second-generation college students starting a family will also decrease. Under the influence of a variety of factors, the second-generation agricultural college students can neither realize the smooth transition from campus to society, nor can they realize the environmental transformation from the original family to the small family, and it is even more difficult to realize the role change from the child generation to the parent generation.