北京大学发展和政经workshop第14期

讲座题目：How Do Single-Parent Family Backgrounds Affect Marriage Opportunities? Evidence from Field Experiments in Chinese Marriage Markets

主讲人：何浩然，北京师范大学京师特聘教授

时间：2025年6月4日 （周三）10:30-12:00

地点：北京大学国家发展研究院承泽园校区245教室

摘要：

Although single-parent families (SPFs) have become increasingly common, the impact of an SPF background on children’s outcomes in marriage market has received insufficient attention. This study investigates how and why SPF backgrounds affect marriage market opportunities via field experiments conducted on a large marriage-oriented online dating platform in China. In the first field experiment, by creating fictitious dater profiles with varying family backgrounds and sending dating invitations to potential daters, we examine the responses received.  The results reveal that children from SPFs receive significantly fewer responses compared to children from intact families. The magnitude of this gap is equivalent to a compensation of at least 4,000 Chinese Yuan (CNY) in the monthly income of children from SPFs. The penalties are substantially larger for children from single-father families than those from single-mother families, requiring income compensations of approximately 11,500 CNY and 4,000 CNY, respectively, to bridge the response gap. Further analysis shows that penalties against SPF backgrounds are significantly reduced when the child’s gender aligns with that of the custodial parent. These asymmetric patterns are consistent with our theoretical model in which gender differences in mate preferences play a central role in shaping discriminatory behavior. To validate this model, we conduct the second field experiment that exogenously manipulates non-material personal characteristics in fictitious profiles and examines whether their effects on discrimination against children from single-parent families differ by gender. Consistent with the model’s predictions, we find that disclosing more non-material characteristics significantly reduces discrimination against women from single-parent families, but has no significant effect for men. These findings offer valuable insights into the effects of SPF backgrounds on children’s marriage opportunities.

主讲人简介：

何浩然，北京师范大学京师特聘教授，瑞典哥德堡大学经济学博士，国家级青年人才项目入选者，国家一级运动员。主要研究领域为行为经济学、实验经济学、劳动力市场、亲社会行为、团队决策、公共政策评估。近年来在Economic Journal、Journal of Labor Economics、Experimental Economics、Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization、Social Choice and Welfare、Journal of Economic Psychology、Economics Letters、China Economic Review、《管理世界》、《经济学（季刊）》、《世界经济》等期刊上发表论文。