Study: Hukou major factor in Shanghai marriages

A new sociology study has found that only about 20 percent of a sample of marriages in Shanghai involve residents with local hukou - or household registration - and migrants without Shanghai hukou.

The study, jointly conducted by sociologists from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and Brown University in the United States, and released this week in the Chinese Sociological Review, reveals how China's hukou system is creating wider inequality between migrants and locals, and between the educated and less educated in Shanghai.

The researchers used data from a 2013 population survey in Shanghai, asking the respondents born in the 1980s about their own and their spouses' hukou and education when they first got married. The sample included 1,247 couples in Shanghai, half of whose population is migrants.