Difficulties of Getting Married for Mongolian Men from Rural Areas of Eastern Inner Mongolia: Centered on Work-Life Away from Home

In this paper, based on the stories of people affected by the change in conditions around marriage in rural Eastern Inner Mongolia during their time working away from home, I examined how work-life away from home has made marriage more difficult for men. As a result, I found that before working away from home became prevalent, marriage areas in the observed regions were very small, and when people, including men, reached a certain age, they would be able to get married. When working away from one’s home first started to become more common, it was considered to be a transitional period for marriage. Men working away from their home would return to their village at the request of their parents. In contrast, while some women working away from their home returned home, others decided not to do so. Thus, in the region surveyed, the ratio of unmarried men to unmarried women became unbalanced. While men who do well financially are able to get married, those who do not do well financially are not. As working away from one’s home became increasingly more common, the ratio of unmarried men to unmarried women became increasingly more unbalanced. Furthermore, as the expectations of women toward their marriage partner rose, even when unmarried men overcame the hurdle of meeting a woman, there were many cases where men were unable to overcome the hurdle of getting married, falling into marriage difficulties.