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The disparity in marriage timing between migrants and non-migrants in China has been detected. One of the explanations for this inequality is the hukou status. Yet, this explanation neglects a special type of migrants: those who have earned a local hukou. This study specifies non-hukou migrants, hukou converters, and local residents in Shanghai, and compares their marriage timing and pathways. Using discrete-time event analyses, this study finds that both non-hukou migrants and new Shanghainese (hukou migrants) are more likely to have a delayed marriage than their local counterparts, showing that hukou preference is not the sole explanation for marital inequality in China. Further estimations reveal that new Shanghainese spend a longer time entering a network-introduced marriage while they exhibit no difference in the timing of self-initiated marriages than local Shanghainese. The results indicate that hukou migrants are not deprioritizing marriage, but they lack social connections to the local marriage market. Non-hukou migrants encounter double disadvantages of lacking a local hukou and local social connections. Social networks are an alternative lens other than the hukou status to understanding marital disparities among migrants and non-migrants in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the state has shifted its priorities towards social harmony and poverty alleviation, this study finds rhetorical resonance, combined with strong lineage solidarity, as an emerging strategy for villages to compete for government resources and investments. By articulating grassroots needs as being in line with local cadres' performance goals, villages have successfully converted their needs into development proposals and mobilized lineage solidarity to persuade local cadres of the feasibility of such proposals. Drawing on three villages' school-saving efforts in Fujian province, our fieldwork illustrates how one village retained its school by mobilizing lineage solidarity and converting education into a "model" village project to boost cultural tourism. Others failed to do so and lost their schools. Under the target-based cadre management system, the bottom-up competition for government support is largely shaped by the villages' pre-existing development and resource structures, which may maximize management efficiency but may also reinforce socioeconomic inequalities between villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]