Educational 'marrying down' more common among women

The post-1990 generation in China, represented by an era of rapid economic development and a social media boom, has become known for breaking with tradition, and now it is tipping the educational balance in marriage, according to a recent study.

Married women born between 1990 and 1994 represent the first group more likely to have received higher education than their spouses, reversing a longstanding pattern in which husbands tended to be the more educated half of the nuptial union.

The emerging trend has primarily been driven by vast improvements in female education, and will have implications for families' childbearing decisions and the nation's overall fertility level, said Qing Shisong, head of the Population Research Institute at East China Normal University in Shanghai and author of the study.