We can't wait to marry

By Xu Chunzi (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-23 14:47

Many Chinese college students marry as soon as they graduate.

Gong Yue and her boyfriend of five years are planning to tie the knot just a year after they graduate with PhDs in medical science from Peking University's Health Science Center. Gong's friend Shen Han is also going to marry her classmate boyfriend of seven years soon after they graduate.

Gong and Shen are prospective members of an emerging tribe in China. An online survey by China Youth Daily and Sohu.com found that a quarter of the 1,900 surveyed got married upon graduation, or planned to do so soon after.

The rise of this phenomenon seems to buck the trend that young people today, the so-called "Generation post-80s", have embraced: You must have a career before you can have your own family. "We're not too worried about that. We can do career and family at the same time," Gong says.

She and her boyfriend believe their medical degrees will land them comfortable jobs with relative ease.

Marriage and family counselor Hou Zhimin thinks the new graduates' decision to get married so soon is more a defense mechanism against the pressure of post-college reality.

"Employment and marriage are two rites of passage and young people today find it very difficult to face both after graduation," Hou says.

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