This article is from WeChat public account:Chinese Youth Research (ID:china-youth-study) , author: Ma Haipeng Jing Ouyang, from the cover: Oriental IC

Abstract: The emergence of “leftover women” in underdeveloped counties in the central and western regions has changed the traditional understanding of “leftover women in the north”. The “leftover women” in the county have obvious “institutional” characteristics, mainly appearing in the party and government organs and institutions of the county and townships. Female teachers are the female subjects, and the female civil servants in the county and townships tend to have more and more. The study found that young women in the county system generally want to choose males who are better than themselves to be married. However, the male youth in the county system cannot meet the mate’s needs in terms of quantity and quality, so the young women in the system appear. The more and more there are. Behind the women in the county system is the imbalance of young talents in the county, the lack of talent and the loss of talent. Therefore, the promotion of talents in policy, the introduction and retention of young talents is not only to solve the problem of women left in the county, but also to solve the problem of poverty alleviation and development in underdeveloped areas.

Keywords: county; within the system; leftover women; young talents

I. Introduction

When the author was engaged in county-level governance research, he accidentally discovered that there were a large number of older unmarried women in the county system in remote areas such as the central and western regions. Take D County, which we surveyed, as an example. The total number of new recruits in the county since 2008 is 2,993, including 1,895 women.Among these women, there are currently about 248 unmarried women over the age of 30 (This data does not include those who are still single among women recruited before 2008). We found that many departments of the D County government have unmarried older women. In the education system, almost every school has older unmarried female teachers, and most of them are rural female teachers. This phenomenon is completely different from the traditional understanding of “leftover women in the north.” Because in the general public perception, the remaining women mainly appeared in more developed urban areas. For example, the academic research on the leftover women is almost focused on cities such as Beishangguangshen and Shenzhen [1][2]. In the definition of “leftover women”, whether it is the “leftover woman” in the broad sense, that is, “the age of the unmarried urban young women”; or the narrow “leftover women”, that is, “characterically defined in the modern city “Unmarried women with high education, high income, and high IQ” are inseparable from the characteristics of the “urban” region [3]. “The older unmarried (usually over 30 years old) women in the city are the general definition of “leftover women” by researchers. “Because the city is a gathering place for social elites, in the process, more and more outstanding women accumulate in the city, and are restricted by the gradient mate, and are left over from marriage. At the same time, in densely populated cities. The unique personality and interpersonal relationship of the city caused by heterogeneity provides a more relaxed psychological and social space for the ‘leftover women’ than the village. This is the reason why the phenomenon of ‘leftover women’ is concentrated in the city.” [4]. A series of empirical studies on leftover women have also certified more women in the first-tier cities such as Beishangguangshen and Shenzhen. The national data analysis also shows that “there are more women in the big cities and more men in the remote areas” [5][6 ].

Obviously, compared with the usual “Northern and Upper Women”, the phenomenon of leftover women in economically backward and remote small county seems to exceed our previous definition and analysis of the “leftover women” group. So, what are the characteristics of the leftover women in the remote small county? What is the reason for their “leftover” and older unmarried women in big cities? The analysis of this paper will not only present the characteristics of the remaining women in the county, but also answer the question of why the return to the small county and the choice of stable women are left from the perspective of the flow of young talents in the county.


Second, the distribution of women in the county within the “institution”

In October 2018 and January-March 2019, we conducted detailed data collection in the D County Civil Affairs Bureau, Organization Department, Personnel Bureau, Youth League Committee, Women’s Federation, Education Bureau, and Health Bureau. As a result, it was found that a large number of unmarried women over the age of 30 were distributed in the county, which is commonly referred to as “leftover women”. However, the “leftover women” in the county have obvious “institutional” characteristics, mainly appearing in the county and township party and government organs and institutions. In layman’s terms, the remaining women in the county are mainly women who “take wages” and “have work units”, and belong to the staff within the system. (mainly refers to civil service establishment And career compilers). According to our survey in D County and cases from other counties in the central region, most of the older unmarried women in the county were born between 1984 and 1989, that is, between 30 and 35 years old. This age is also the work of (18-24 years old) 10 years old or older, so we focus on this age. The section made detailed statistics on the number of people recruited in D County since 2008. As shown in Table 1:

Table 1 shows that since 2008, D County has recruited a total of 2,993 people, including 1,895 women, accounting for 63.3% of the total number, of which 248 unmarried women over 30 years old, accounting for 13.1% of the female population. Among the total number of people recruited in the county since 2008, the number of education systems is the highest, 1508, including 1209 female teachers, 80.1% are female teachers, and 175 unmarried female teachers over 30 years old, accounting for 30 years old. 70.6% of the older unmarried women. This meansAmong the female teachers who started working in 2008, there were only 175 unmarried people over the age of 30, accounting for 14.5%. The male-female ratio is second to the education system is the health system. Among 493 people, women (mostly nurses) account for 64.3%, of which 30-year-old is unmarried There are 35 women, accounting for 11.0% of the number of women working in the system since 2008. In addition to these two systems, other institutions and institutions (mainly county, township party and government institutions) did not show obvious more women than men Phenomenon, on the contrary, women accounted for only 37.8% of the total number, but there are still 38 unmarried women over 30 years old, accounting for 10.0% of the female population.

Three, female teachers are female subjects in the county area

Based on our experience of living and working in the county, female teachers in primary and secondary schools have because of their professional characteristics (there are cultures, holidays, and benefits for the next generation of education). ), has always been a high-quality resource in the marriage market, and its marriage partner is generally a male youth with a work unit in the county. For example, when we were in high school, (around 2000), unmarried female teachers on campus were very popular, and there were many excellent men in the system to choose from. . On the contrary, the spouses of male teachers in primary and secondary schools at that time were almost all women outside the system without work units. For example, the spouses of many of our male teachers are beautiful women from rural areas with (such as hairdressers, tailors, self-employed, etc.). Our survey in D County also found that male teachers in primary and middle schools born in the 1970s, and even some male township cadres, most of their spouses are women outside the system who have no formal work.

In other words, in the county marriage market, there is almost no “remaining” phenomenon among women in the system born in the 1970s. On the contrary, they are the active pickers in the marriage market. In the words of one of our interviewees, the female teacher was the worst teacher to marry a male teacher. Most of them chose the “good unit” (social status and income are high, county families) young men, for example, children born in county towns, families with good family conditions, or more promising party and government organs Cadres, or public security law cadres with higher incomes and convenient operations.

Why does the current female teacher become a vulnerable group in the county marriage market? Not only did they lose the dominant position of the initiative, but they were also in a passive “remaining” embarrassing situation. The data in Table 1 shows that one of the main reasons for the remaining female teachers is the “female and many men” of the teacher group. Women accounted for 63% of the people who entered D County in 10 years. The male-female ratio of the teacher system was especially imbalanced, and 80% were female teachers. This shows that the profession of teachers is not attractive to male youth after 80 and 90. Our interviews also show that males after 80 and 90 are reluctant to be teachers, especially those who are not suitable for primary and secondary schools in remote areas. There are about 200 teachers in the two best urban primary schools in D County, but only eight male teachers born after 1980. The mainstream of male teachers in primary and middle schools in D County is still the teachers and college students born in the 1960s and 1970s. This also shows that since the market reform of higher education in the 1990s, few men have entered the primary education system in the underdeveloped areas of the central region. As one of our interviewees said, now the outstanding young men are going to the big cities. It is very common to return to the small county towns. Most of the young people who return to the small county towns to be primary school teachers are not able to mix outside.

We later confirmed in the D County Personnel Bureau that since 2008, there have been very few male youths from various institutions in the various counties in the county, most of which are from two colleges. . Moreover, in all kinds of examinations, girls’ test ability and interview ability are generally stronger than boys. For example, in D County’s 2018 teacher recruitment, (more than 60 girls and more than 30 boys) among the 100 candidates who signed up. Seven boys entered the interview and only three physical education teachers were admitted. The cadres in charge of the main examination said that in the case of the general lack of male teachers, as long as the boys enter the interview, the employers will generally consider admission, but the four boys who entered the interview are really too bad, afraid to ask, afraid of mistakes. This aspect reflects the lack of willingness to return to the county to teach after graduating from a male university. On the other hand, it also shows that male college students who are willing to return to the county to teach are relatively low-quality.

Four, the more female cadres in the county and townships

According to common sense, the number of young female civil servants in the county is small and should be the dominant group in the marriage market. However, as shown in Table 1, among the government employees who have been working in D County since 2008, there are nearly 40 unmarried women over the age of 30. If the age is set at 28, the number is more (In fact, in a small county, if a woman is 28 years old, she is considered to be an older unmarried woman). In our interviews, we found that, in comparison, female civil servants in county towns have more advantages than female civil servants in towns and villages, but most of the institutions and institutions in the county have the phenomenon of “leftover women”. Nearly half of these older unmarried women are deputy-level cadres and are increasing year by year.

Case 1: Ms. G, born in 1982, became a rural elementary school teacher after she graduated in 2004. Because she has a narrow social background and almost no male teacher among her peers, she has not found herself as a suitable or chatter. The object that comes. In 2009, G passed the civil service examination and became a township cadre. Compared with primary school teachers, the social level is relatively wide and the level is high. Although G and his family are actively looking for suitable targets, G has not changed his mate selection after he became a township cadre. Situation. First, because 27-year-olds have no age advantage in small county towns, and secondly, there are more women of appropriate age in all aspects of townships and towns. Male civil servants will first choose female civil servants working in county towns. After the 30-year-old G was promoted to the township disciplinary committee secretary in 2012, it was even harder to find the right person.

Ms. G originally thought that getting rid of the identity of rural primary school teachers would be more conducive to finding a target, but the reality is that when she became a township civil servant, she found that there were many older unmarried girls in towns and villages. Therefore, as a township leading cadre, because of the lack of age, it has increased the probability of being “leftover.” Due to the low level of the county level, the department-level cadres belong to the leading cadres within the county system and are the mainstream group of the county system. The case of G also shows that women in the county system are easyAnother main reason for becoming a leftover woman is the concept of mate selection within the system, and the standard of gaze and mate selection is increasing with the rise of the position and identity of women in the system. As Ms. W said, “I am a civil servant and I want to find a civil servant. If I find a non-civil servant or outside the system, I feel that I am married.” However, in the underdeveloped central counties, there are no large state-owned enterprises, colleges and universities, business, banking, and other business institutions, and civil servants and primary and secondary school teachers are the main members of the system. In the case of the teachers’ own “female and many men”, there are not many men in the age-appropriate system available to female civil servants.

Case 2: Ms. W, born in 1988, deputy director of a bureau, has good family conditions. After graduating from university, she passed the civil service examination and entered the county government office to serve as the leading secretary. They started dating after they joined the work, but they were not successful. “A man with good conditions, when he heard that he was shaking his head in the government, he felt that this job was not at home, he worked overtime every day, and he had to travel frequently, regardless of his family. After the promotion, the more outstanding the boys were. The conditions were almost the same, I I can’t see it myself. In short, I am a little better, and my good men are gone.”

Ms. W’s case also reflects another significant feature of older unmarried women in the county: in the county, the more outstanding women, the more likely they are to become women. In our research, we found that women like Ms. W, graduated from college, have good family conditions and strong work ability, have high standards of mate selection. They generally want to find men who are equal in their own conditions and who are stronger than themselves. But as W said, “small places, not many good boys.” The reason why women born after 1980 will feel that there are not many outstanding men in small county towns, because the college graduates born after 1980 are just the groups that are no longer “distributing work” after the reform of higher education market, and the male college students of the same era. Most of them went to the big cities to work hard. “Only those who can’t get outside can return to the small county.” The ratio of female college students back to the county town is higher than that of male college students, mainly due to the different expectations and positioning of the family for boys and girls (mostly single women). Most parents believe that boys should go outside and girls should be stable, preferably around their parents. Back to the girl around the parents, if the conditions are good, the vision is high, in the case of relatively low-quality resources in the county “quality male”, “catch the pick, the age is big.” Once a woman is over 30 years old, she loses her age advantage. Therefore, the best group of women in the county—women’s civil servants and female cadres are more and more.

In contrast to the difficulty of choosing a good girl for a good girl, the “system male” of the county age, even if it is a “sweet melon”, basically does not have to worry about finding an object.

Case 3: G Men, a rural elementary school teacher, born in 1990, is short and tall, looks very general, speaks a bit sissy, and is in the county.City, family conditions are general. G said, “My biggest distress at the moment is that I don’t know which girl to choose as a girlfriend. Because one of my female colleagues often asks me to play, help me with class, cooking, and giving fruit. A female cadre in the township often plays. The phone asked me to take a walk; there was also a female nurse from the township hospital who expressed my affection for me, and the people were beautiful. So, I really don’t know which one to choose, so I am distressed.”

If the appearance is normal, the unmarried men in the workplace will be “extraordinarily sought after.” If the system male is a “foreign youth”, it is even more popular, because “a female niece is half a child”, the young people in the field are equivalent to a white son for the local female parents.

Case 4: B man, deputy department-level cadre of the county procuratorate, born in 1988, height 1.75, looks good, foreigners, have purchased houses in the county. When B first entered the procuratorate, he was introduced to him. Like him, “the unit is good, the personal conditions are good, and he is a small leader, and he is a foreigner. When he finds an object, he only has the right to pick it.” Therefore, he knows all the girls of good age in the county. If you arbitrarily report the name of a girl, he will know the family conditions such as his appearance, parent’s occupation, and rank.

The case of G and B further presents the dilemma of the unmarried “system woman” in the county. As mentioned above, the main reason is that the young men who work in the small county are not only less than the young women, but also not the same as the women in their personal qualities. In October, D County is the new civil servant’s entry period. During this period, the seven aunts and eight aunts of the young women in the county’s unmarried system have dispatched, looking for people to match, eat, walk, and compete for a new age-appropriate system. . At this time, female teachers in the county are strong competitors of female civil servants, because the teachers have a natural advantage in working hours and raising the next generation. Moreover, the number of female teachers is large, and the beautiful female students are relatively large. Therefore, under the background of a limited number of male civil servants of the appropriate age, and the willingness of female civil servants to find civil servants, male civil servants are willing to choose female teachers with superior talents, county-age female civil servants are prone to “more and more”.

Five, the young talents behind the county’s leftover women

Youth talents are the core elements and driving force for promoting county development. However, talents “cannot be introduced, unable to recruit, can not stay” have been the main factors restricting the development of counties in underdeveloped areas [7]. The phenomenon of “remaining women in the system” in the county is generally related to the flow of young talents in underdeveloped areas. The outflow of a large number of outstanding young talents has led to imbalances in the structure of young talents in these areas, low quality, and imbalances in the proportion of young men and women in the system.

The age structure of county human resources is mainly composed of groups born after 60, 70, 80 and 90 years, but some of the 60 and 70-year groups have entered the core leadership of the county (cadre above the division level), most of them. It is a veteran who can “qualify and do nothing”. Therefore, the young people after the 80s and 90s became the main force of the operation of the county government, and they shouldered the most basic and hard work of the grassroots. But as D County has shown, these young main forces are made up of more than 60% of women, which means that the main work at the grassroots level needs to be done by young women. For example, the D County Youth League Committee is a young man after the 80s, but except for the Communist Youth League secretary, the rest are female, 2 of them have just born a second child, and one is pregnant. The daily work of the Youth League Committee mainly relies on a unmarried woman born in 1992. cadre. But the female cadre is very worried that she will become a leftover woman because “only work time, no off-duty time.” This also reflects another production logic of the leftover woman: the more unmarried, the more work is undertaken; the more work, the less time there is to find an object.

After the 80th and 90th generations of the county government, there are not only structural imbalances of “female and more men”, but also “there are many people who are not willing to return to the small county”, which leads to problems such as insufficient talents in the county and brain drain. This is especially true among county teachers and doctors. We found in D County that many young teachers specialize in tourism management, law, administration, accounting, and electronic engineering. An cadre of the Education Bureau said that unlike the teachers who were only teachers and teachers graduates before the 1990s, no matter what profession, as long as there is a teacher qualification certificate, teachers can be used as teachers. This leads to a “slip-down” in the county level. “There is even a tendency to “learn as a teacher”. Because many young teachers graduated from provincial and municipal colleges and universities (some of which are colleges and higher vocational colleges that only need to take the college entrance examination), so there are some people who are poor students and students from the beginning of primary school. . These teachers do not know the stroke order of Chinese characters, can’t read pinyin, and don’t know the education methods, educational methods, educational rules, and educational concepts.

A young teacher interviewed described that young teachers in the county did not spend a lot of time on teaching. They never read books, study or prepare lessons, but played mahjong, play, and drama. Because the young people around are not pursuing, “stand on oneA flat land, not pursuing a rich and powerful, no idea, everything is so indifferent. Therefore, many people’s leisure time is almost dedicated to the mahjong table. Among them, playing mahjong is also a shortcut for older unmarried women to meet people and find objects.

A county-level doctor is similar to the younger group of teachers in the county. In a doctor’s enrollment in D County in 2018, the score of the clinician was only 19.5 points (out of 100 points). D County cadres self-deprecating, “Is this a doctor or a butcher?” The dilemma of human resources in the central and western counties lies in the fact that on the one hand, there are no outstanding talents, on the other hand, relatively good and outstanding young people are all The exam is separated from the county. For example, in D County, young doctors, young teachers and civil servants are admitted to provincial and municipal units each year or to coastal areas. Although the best high school in D County can return a small number of graduates from the provincial normal university every year through directed training, most of them resign to the coastal areas when the contract expires. Another group of brain drain is young people from other counties, most of whom are women. Because of the advantages of men in the marriage market, they are likely to become local son-in-law. Since the family is not in the local area, the life circle and the circle of friends and relatives are not as wide as the locals. Therefore, women outside the county are less likely to find objects and have a higher probability of becoming a leftover woman.

In addition, the economy of the central and western counties is backward, and the conditions in all aspects are poor. Women from other places who are untrustworthy and untrustworthy are hard to work with peace of mind. These factors have motivated young people from other places to repatriate their nationality or to go to provincial and municipal levels. In addition, if the proportion of male and female talents in the county is unbalanced, it will not be conducive to the in-depth development of grassroots governance. From a realistic perspective, there are more and more female cadres, but women in the grassroots governance should not be as good as men in dealing with things such as going to the countryside, staying in the village, adding night shifts, fighting floods, and land acquisition and demolition. For example, modern young women generally love beauty, but grassroots work often requires wind, rain, sun, and stay up all night, which affects the value of the face, which in turn affects the search for objects; plus women go to the village to enter the village, fear of dogs, fear of snakes Fear of bachelor, it is difficult to be alone. Therefore, in the case of “female and more men” and the “lazy politics” of the old comrades, the work intensity of the young male cadres at the grassroots level is generally larger, because they have to bear more of the work that the above women can hardly bear. In addition, grassroots cadres should meet the requirements of modern administrative informationization, dataization and documentation. Young cadres spend a lot of time processing various reports, data and archives (Old comrades say “no computer”, leaving almost all “jobs” to young people). As a main young cadre, when “going to the countryside” and “doing homework” cannot be taken into consideration, it is generally preferred to “do homework.” Therefore, the proliferation of “formalism” at the grassroots level is not only related to the administrative system, but also to the lack of young talents at the grassroots level.

six, conclusion

In the remote counties of the Midwest, on the one hand, there are more and more women left in the system, and on the other hand, there are a large number of rural bachelors. This shows that the generation of women in the system is not due to the gender imbalance of the county’s overall population, that is, it does not conform to the theory of marriage squeeze under gender [8]. From the county women’s “in the system to find the system” and “think better than their own” and other mate choices, this is the same as the “Northern Shangguang” left women’s mate choice, that is, we usually call the mate gradient theory [9]. However, the desire to choose a spouse in the theory of mate selection is a common social psychology. Women from ancient times to the present will choose men who are equal to themselves or better than themselves. The so-called “door-to-door” and “married” all indicate this society. The universality of psychology. Therefore, from the perspective of social psychology, no matter whether it is a contemporary society or a traditional society, whether it is a small county in the central or western region or a north-south wide in a developed region, there is no fundamental change in women’s willingness to choose a spouse. The question that really needs to be discussed is, in the absence of changes in the willingness to choose a spouse, why is it that only the contemporary society has a leftover woman? When discussing the phenomenon of women in the north, the researchers generally believe that the “leftover woman” is a hot word that emerged around 2006 and is the result of modern social changes. As some researchers believe, “With the horizontal flow between regions, women with higher education usually have strong professional mobility and a more open concept of social mobility. However, life enters the age of marriage and love, especially the flow, especially The flow between regions will objectively reduce their chances of marriage and marriage, and subjectively affect their choice of marriage and marriage opportunities [10].

However, contrary to the frequent occupational flow of the left-behind women, the women who choose to return to the small county are just choosing stability, so why are they left? This paper believes that the female subjective in the remote county system has the willingness to actively find the spouse. The gradient mate theory still dominates the female mate selection concept. Most women are not willing to “marry” to the male outside the system. Most outstanding young men are reluctant to return to work in small county towns, resulting in fewer males in the county system than women in the system. This leads to the phenomenon of male “sweet” in the county system and the “more and more” women in the system.

This article found its back from the phenomenon of women left in the county system.