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In China, a critical challenge for rural-to-urban migrants planning to settle down is to convert their rural hukou (household registration) to an urban one through a limited set of de jure channels. This study argues that marriage is a key channel that some migrants take, notably for female migrants. Using data from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey, we analyzed how educational and age disparities between female rural-to-urban migrants and their husbands relate to urban hukou conversion. We found that the rural women who used marriage as the means to hukou conversion were more likely to marry someone less educated and much older. The findings suggest that rural women can realize their geographical and social mobility by a strategic response to the residence policy, which may in turn impact the dynamics of gender inequality in the household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research on religious homogamy has struggled to distinguish whether religiosity or homogamy has a stronger impact on preventing a marital dissolution. To rectify this problem, I use a latent class approach to compare couples with various forms of partner religiosity and similarity. Based on 707 newlywed couples from the Marriage Matters survey (1998–2004), I discovered four latent classes: “holy” couples (both partners are highly religious), “nonattending” couples (both partners identify as religious but don’t regularly attend services), “unbalanced” couples (the wife is religious but the husband is not), and “secular” couples (both partners are not religious). Findings indicate that holy, nonattending, and unbalanced couples experience less odds of divorce compared with secular couples, suggesting that religiosity in a variety of forms is more important than partner similarity in avoiding divorce. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]