Unmarried Men: A New Demographic Concern

In China today heterosexual marriage remains the prerequisite for marital-type cohabitation and family formation. Most young Chinese are of the belief that once they reach adulthood, heterosexual marriage is inevitable and that there is no alternative.Footnote ⁶ As a consequence, social norms still strongly influence behaviours and very few Chinese, especially in rural areas, choose to remain unmarried. In 2010, only 5 per cent of males and 1.2 per cent of females aged 30 had never been married; at the age of 50, these percentages were 3.3 and 0.3, respectively. Whilst almost all women were married at the age of 30, irrespective of their educational level (Figure 1a), the situation was rather different for men (Figure 1b). Marriage was a near universality for all except those with no schooling (2.3 million, which represents 5 per cent of the male population aged 15 or over in 2000): more than one third of males with no schooling (37 per cent) were still unmarried at the age of 30 (compared with 9.9 per cent of all others); aged 50, it was 20 per cent (compared with 3 per cent of educated males).

Figure 1a and 1b: Never-married Population by Age and Level of Education in 2010 (%)

The comparatively high prevalence of bachelorhood among men with no schooling is a result of the combined effect of a longstanding male marriage squeeze in China (in the 1982 census, 94.3 per cent of single people aged 40 or above were malesFootnote ⁷) and the practice of female hypergamy, as women tend to select spouses from better socio-economic backgrounds,Footnote ⁸ leaving the poorest men more frequently excluded from marriage.Footnote ⁹

There has long been a sex imbalance in China's population. In the past, this atypical demographic characteristic resulted from high rates of female mortality, especially at young ages and in the reproductive period, in a society based on patrilineal values which maintained women in a secondary position.Footnote ¹⁰ However, from the 1980s onwards, following the enforcement of birth-control policies and despite modernization, China has registered an increasingly skewed sex ratioFootnote ¹¹ to the point that it is now, after India (106.4 males per 100 females, according to its 2011 Census), the country with the highest ratio of men to women: 104.9 per 100 females in 2010,Footnote ¹² while the world average that year (China and India excluded) was 98.5.Footnote ¹³ In 2000, the gender imbalance among China's never-married population reached new highs: of those aged 25–29, 74.2 per cent were men; of those aged 30 above, 90.6 per cent were men.Footnote ¹⁴

The current sex imbalance in the marriage market – and more widely on the sexual market – is due partly, through the process of fertility decline, to the mismatched sizes of male and female birth cohorts from the 1970s onwards now reaching marriageable age, allowing for the age gap between spouses. It has been further exacerbated by discrimination against girls throughout the 1980s through sex-selective abortions and neglect after birth, leaving the younger age groups with a pronounced male surplus.Footnote ¹⁵ While adjustments like a widening spousal age gap or an increase in remarriage among widowed and divorced women may alleviate this imbalance, a significant number of men may remain excluded from marriage: the sex ratio among people aged 15–49 is expected to reach around 117–120 men per 100 women in 2050.Footnote ¹⁶ China's population will have to find ways of adjusting to this new demographic concern which will be a defining feature of the coming decades. The male surplus will have ramifications far beyond the narrow bounds of population counting, which, however, cannot be accurately foretold as this is a unique and large-scale situation never experienced in the past; even if they increase no further, the highly skewed sex ratios of today will have a major impact on China's culture and society.Footnote ¹⁷

The Bare Branches: A Specific Subject for Research

As stated above, a prolonged or even permanent state of being unmarried is – and will remain – largely a male characteristic in China.Footnote ¹⁸ As mentioned above, the marriage market is impacted by hypergamy as women exercise their preference for a spouse with a higher socio-economic status. As a result, there is a higher number of bachelors among poorer and less-educated malesFootnote ¹⁹ whose chances of marrying may be further compromised by an inability to meet the rising costs of marriage – including bride priceFootnote ²⁰ and the costs of the ceremony itself.Footnote ²¹ This group of involuntary bachelors has been termed the “bare branches” (guanggun'er 光棍儿) – an expression applied to men who, being unable to marry, are unable to form a family since growing new branches on the family tree is impossible without marriage, according to prevailing social and familial norms.Footnote ²²

In rural society in particular, marriage is the prerequisite for legitimate sexual activity,Footnote ²³ which is itself set in a social and cultural context shaped by ancient Daoist and Confucian traditions, but still strongly marked by the enforced social control of three decades of communism.Footnote ²⁴ Contemporary Chinese society leaves almost no alternative to heterosexual marriage.Footnote ²⁵ Non-marital cohabitation is still rare and in most cases only a preliminary to marriage, and bachelorhood is still looked down upon. In many aspects, Chinese society remains deeply imbued with Confucian traditions which set great store by the continuation of the family line and filial piety.Footnote ²⁶ Marriage and parenthood are essential to both and are therefore generally considered to be required stages in an individual's life. According to Evans: “The conflation of sexual relations and marriage is reinforced by the naturalized view of marriage as the inevitable culmination of […] early adulthood.”Footnote ²⁷ Furthermore, marriage not only remains a means of perpetuating patrilineal traditions, especially through ancestor worship,Footnote ²⁸ but also allows new kinship ties to be formed which help to build social and economic networks.Footnote ²⁹

This exploratory survey addresses the issue of bachelorhood by considering that, when not chosen, it is likely to impact life plans. Our founding research assumption is, therefore, that in the social and cultural context of China's rural society, which puts a premium on marriage and parenthood,Footnote ³⁰ there exists a dichotomy between married and unmarried people, with the latter having restricted access to the social benefits associated with marriage. Being unable to marry and father children is no trivial matter: it may produce frustrations and privations on many fronts (sexual, emotional, lack of social recognition, etc.), the consequences of which for both individuals and the community are still largely unknown. Some studies have attempted to predict the possible consequences of large-scale bachelorhood on society as a whole;Footnote ³¹ however, to our knowledge, no research has yet been devoted to the personal situation of bachelors in China's rural areas where traditional social values are still very much present, and to the impact of involuntary bachelorhood on the men themselves. The “Survey on family life and reproductive health of the unmarried men in rural China” (Zhongguo nongcun nanxing shengzhi jiankang he jiating shenghuo diaocha 中国农村男性生殖健康和家庭生活调查), conducted in 2008 in a rural county of Anhui (hereafter called JC county), attempted to address this void by asking several questions: how does bachelorhood affect a man's life and his life plans? Considering that premarital sex, although increasingly common,Footnote ³² is still socially stigmatized,Footnote ³³ is bachelorhood likely to impact sexual activity? Does the sexuality of bachelors differ from that of married men? Do unmarried men display specific socio-economic characteristics?

Methodology and Limits of the Survey

The need for an exploratory study on bachelors in rural China proved obvious in the context of such a large-scale (tens of millions of people will be affected by involuntary bachelorhood)Footnote ³⁴ and potentially longstanding impact (the sex imbalance in the marriage market is likely to be felt at least until around 2030).Footnote ³⁵ This survey attempts to serve a dual purpose: to explore bachelors' opinions and practices in a context of significant social control, and to learn about their sexual behaviour in a context of a male surplus. As in many other countries, particularly in the developing world, contact with the population could only be made with the agreement and cooperation of the local authorities. The questionnaires were handed out by employees of the local family planning bureau. They were trained and supervised by researchers from the Institute for Population and Development Studies (IPDS), who were present throughout the data collection operations. However, as far as we could tell from the results, which are consistent with those from other existing surveys,Footnote ³⁶ the presence of the local authorities did not impair data collection or affect the quality of answers.

The sample was selected randomly (cluster sampling method) from the family planning registers in villages attached administratively to JC county. The county was divided into three zones from which six townships or villages were selected, two in each zone. Four administrative villages were then randomly selected in each of these townships or villages, i.e. a total of 24 villages. Finally, 15 single men were chosen in each village in order to obtain five men in each of the three age groups (28–34, 35–44, and 45 and above) in such a way that a total of 360 single men aged 28 years or above were selected initially. However, when a total of five men by age group could not be reached, the remainder were drawn from the age group immediately below. In some cases, the selection was extended to men aged 27 years and to villages in a neighbouring township. In total, the sample was selected from seven townships and villages. As the survey was designed to study the characteristics of single men, they were intentionally overrepresented: a ratio of 3:2 was applied to select the sample of married men from single men. In total, 665 men were approached. During the process, 38 of them withdrew (a dropout rate of 5.7 per cent), and six questionnaires (0.9 per cent) were filled out too quickly (in less than 20 minutes) and were withdrawn. This left a total of 621 usable questionnaires (93.4 per cent of the initial sample), of which 41.5 per cent (258) were filled out by married men, and 58.5 per cent (363) by single men. Finally, as the age of 30 was considered as the threshold for rural males to get married,Footnote ³⁷ only questionnaires completed by males aged 30 or above were considered for the present analysis, i.e. 288 never-married and 235 married men, with a total sample of 523 males. As they were by definition absent from the county at the time of the survey, male migrants were excluded from the sample. This decision was supported by the argument that migration is likely to influence behaviour.Footnote ³⁸

To guarantee anonymity to respondents and allow them to respond freely, the CAPI (Computer-assisted personal interviewing) method was used. An interviewer was present to give technical assistance to the respondent when necessary, but was seated in front of the respondent and unable to see the computer screen. Before starting the process, an interviewer read to each respondent the regulations concerning privacy protection, and informed him of the possibility to withdraw at any time. When the respondent was illiterate (38 respondents) or had a low education level, the interviewer read out the questions and explained only how to input an answer. Each respondent was allocated 45 to 60 minutes to answer the questionnaire.

This survey was primarily designed to identify new research issues and to pave the way for further data collection operations. However, it has also generated original information that can be used for a descriptive analysis. In addition, in spite of its limited sample size, it has provided preliminary answers to our major research questions. While the results of this case study are not intended to be generalized or applied to situations elsewhere, they undoubtedly shed new light on the situation of bachelors in China's rural areas.

Bachelors' Characteristics in JC County

JC county is located in Anhui province. It was selected for the survey for two major reasons: first, the traditional patriarchal system, Confucian culture and son preference still prevail in this area, as in many parts of China; and second, the county appears to be representative of rural China's social and demographic situation.

In 2000, JC county had fewer than 800,000 inhabitants, with an overall sex ratio of 103.9 males per 100 females. Two-thirds of the population (66.1 per cent) were working in agriculture, and the average annual income of peasants was around 4,000 yuan. Sex ratios for children under 5 were very skewed: 118.9 boys per 100 girls (against 120.2 nationally in 2000), or about 15 per cent above the levels usually expected.Footnote ³⁹ A male surplus was also observed in the never-married population aged 27 or above, of which 63.9 per cent were men in 2008. Of the total sample of married men (N = 258), 63.6 per cent said that there was at least one single man aged 27 or above among their contact circle (i.e. family, friends, neighbours, relatives, etc.), suggesting that prolonged or permanent bachelorhood is not a residual phenomenon in the selected villages. It is noteworthy that the marriage market in JC county is characterized by a high propensity to endogamy: 82.2 per cent of the married men questioned (N = 258) had married a woman from the same county, and one in three had married a woman from the same village. The mean age at first marriage of married men questioned (N = 258) was 25.1 years at the time of the survey, slightly below the national average (25.7 years in 2000). There is no significant difference in the age composition of the two groups – the mean age of bachelors being 39.8 years (40.9 years for married men). In most respects, JC county provides a relevant case through which to explore the opinions and practices of bachelors in a context of a male marriage squeeze.

Bachelorhood versus Marriage: A Social Dichotomization

As stated above, our founding research assumption is that in a rural Chinese social and cultural context, people who have access to marriage – which permits them to have legitimate sex, cohabit with a partner and eventually have one or more children – and those who do not – i.e. the bachelors for whom sexual activity and forming a family are considered as socially unacceptable – form two distinct groups with specific behaviours and characteristics.

The results suggest that this assumption is valid. Bachelorhood has an immediate impact on living arrangements: whilst the vast majority of married men (86.8 per cent, with no significant difference by age group) logically live with their wives and/or offspring (see Table 1), half of all never-married men live with one or two parents (45.8 per cent) or with sibling(s) (4.2 per cent). This is especially so for those in the lower age group. Also, while only a very small percentage of married men live alone (usually those whose spouses have migrated), a significant portion of never-married men live by themselves (41.3 per cent), and this is especially the case for older men. It is noteworthy that only four never-married men (1.4 per cent) reported living with a regular partner, and another two (0.7 per cent) reported living with a child/children,Footnote ⁴⁰ and so have found at least a temporary alternative to marriage for forming a family.

Table 1: Living Arrangements by Marital Status and Age Group (%), JC County, 2008

Note: Statistical significance: p ≤ 0.01***; p ≤ 0.05**; p ≤ 0.1*; p > 0.1 ns.

The survey indicates that never-married men are of the opinion that their bachelorhood status would certainly be long term, and most of them consider that they have little chance of marrying: 71.6 per cent of the total sample (i.e. aged 27 + , with N = 363) believe that it is more difficult for a rural man to marry after the age of 30, and only 15.4 per cent (but mainly the youngest at 21.2 per cent) expect to marry within a year. This supports our decision, stated above, to consider 30 as the age after which the chances of marriage decrease significantly in rural China.

These results sketch out several important bachelor characteristics in JC county. As there is little inclination for non-marital cohabitation, the never-married status is valid when defining the absence of marital-type unions, and consequently underlies the absence of any alternative to marriage for family formation. Another observation is that even if two in five bachelors live on their own – a much higher percentage than the national average, which was less than 2 per cent in rural areas in 2000Footnote ⁴¹ – one in two (50 per cent) then live with a parent(s) and/or siblings. This indicates that most bachelors have little privacy in their daily life, and this will obviously have an effect on their sexual activity.

Another commonality among bachelors is their low social and economic status. Such a status, especially in rural or peasant communities, is a consistent determinant of bachelorhoodFootnote ⁴² as women tend to choose spouses who can provide them with better living conditions. According to Evans, “Failure to marry is still widely seen as evidence of impoverishment.”Footnote ⁴³ This link is confirmed in our sample in which married and never-married men form two distinct groups (see Table 2). Never-married men have much less advantageous socio-economic characteristics, as many more fall into the lower income group: 79.2 per cent earned less than 1,000 yuan per month in the six months preceding the survey, against 51.9 per cent of the married men. Furthermore – and this is a plausible explanation for their lower economic status – never-married men are predominantly engaged in agriculture only, while a slightly higher number of married men combine agriculture with complementary activities.

Table 2: Income and Education Level by Marital Status and Age Group (%), JC County, 2008

Notes: Statistical significance: p ≤ 0.01***; p ≤ 0.05**; p ≤ 0.1*; p > 0.1 ns.

Our research shows that never-married men are in general much less educated than married men: 11.8 per cent are illiterate (against 1.3 per cent of married men), and just over half have not received an education beyond primary school. On average, married men have two years more education than never-married men. Never-married men aged 40 or above are by far the least educated: on average, they have less than six years of formal education, which is four years less than the married men in the same age group. The differential by marital status is also found among the youngest respondents, but is much narrower as a consequence of the improvements in overall education levels among children over the past few decades. Whatever else, these data confirm national findings that prolonged or permanent bachelorhood is far more widespread among men in the lowest socio-economic classes, i.e. with lower incomes and education levels. This is in line with other studies that show that rural bachelorhood is generally associated with poverty.Footnote ⁴⁴

On Bachelorhood, Life Plans and Self-Perceptions

The shared characteristics of bachelors in JC county confirm that a low socio-economic status is a crucial determinant of bachelorhood. Poverty and to a much lesser extent a low education level are indeed seen by a significant number of men as the reasons behind their unmarried status. Table 3 shows that the older bachelors are more likely to blame poverty for their lack of marriage prospects, although this is unquestionably related to their own specific circumstances. A shortage of women in the contact circle, as reported by one in four bachelors (26.7 per cent), is another impediment to marriage. Given this, and considering that bachelorhood is not the social norm in rural China and that marital-type cohabitation and family formation outside of marriage are rarely accepted, an assumption can be made that prolonged or even permanent bachelorhood – a fortiori, when associated with poverty – might generate frustration and a sense of marginalization and malaise among bachelors. To that purpose, several questions were asked to determine how bachelorhood impacts self-perception and life plans.

Table 3: Bachelors' Opinions on Causes and Consequences of Bachelorhood, JC County, 2008 (%, multiple choice)

Note: Statistical significance: p ≤ 0.01***; p ≤ 0.05**; p ≤ 0.1*; p > 0.1 ns.

Table 3 illustrates the various emotional and existential frustrations experienced by the majority of bachelors. According to the findings, the men consider social and family pressures to marry and have children the worst aspects of being a bachelor in JC county. As a rule, the high premium still placed on marriage and parenthood results in family and social pressures on unmarried people once they have reached a certain age, especially in rural areas.Footnote ⁴⁵ In our sample, pressure from the contact circle is considered the hardest to bear by the vast majority of young bachelors: 72.7 per cent complain of family pressure and more than half complain of social pressure. With age and the diminishing likelihood of marriage, there is seemingly less pressure from the contact circle, and it is therefore felt less acutely.

Childlessness, which implies the absence of old-age support from offspring and the impossibility of continuing the family line, is also a complaint by a significant share of never-married males (46.2 per cent), but it is regretted more frequently by the oldest for whom the probability of marriage, and hence fatherhood, is predictably lower. This is made hard to bear mainly by social pressure from the contact circle, but also because, for half of them, a fulfilled life entails having children. The need to be looked after in old age is cited by 48.6 per cent of never-married males. Carrying on the family line also remains a male concern (for 42.7 per cent of the never-married), but chiefly among the oldest – obviously, uncertainty about their family future, and their greater attachment to traditional values that comes from their older age, makes this a greater worry for them.

Bachelorhood is also clearly related to emotional wellbeing: more than half of the never-married males report suffering from loneliness and a lack of affection, with no significant difference by age group, indicating that the majority are still searching for a satisfactory emotional compensation for their bachelorhood. Interestingly, absence of sexual activity is reported as being among the worst things to bear by less than half of the never-married males, regardless of age group. This suggests that the majority either have access to some form of sexual activity outside the permissible framework of marriage, or are settling for a sexless life. These assumptions are explored below.

How Bachelorhood Impacts Male Sexuality in JC County

Sexuality has long been a highly sensitive issue in China. The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), in particular, saw the tightening of social controls, and all matter relating to privacy, including sexuality, was banned.Footnote ⁴⁶ It was not until the social liberalization and the opening up of China in the 1980s that it was permissible to study sexual behaviour. Since then several studies and surveys covering this area have been conducted, including work by the sociologists Liu Dalin 刘达临, Pan Suiming 潘绥铭 and Li Yinhe 李银河.Footnote ⁴⁷ However, as far as we are aware, no Chinese study has been undertaken on the sexual behaviour of single men despite the significance of the issue in the context of an increasing male marriage squeeze.

Although major social changes have taken place in the wake of economic reforms and pre-marital sexual activity is beginning to be accepted in urban centres, especially for men,Footnote ⁴⁸ reproduction is still largely confined to married couples and non-marital sexual activity remains widely frowned upon.Footnote ⁴⁹ Consequently, a growing section of the male population will remain childless and unable to have sexual relations in a legitimate setting. It can then be assumed that married and never-married men form two distinct groups in terms of sexual behaviour. Our survey explores whether the sexuality of bachelors differs from that of married men. Are never-married men excluded from any sexual activity? If not, can we consider that their sexual activity is affected by the lack of a legitimate partner within marriage? As less than 50 per cent of the bachelors complain about the absence of sexual activity, can we assume that the others are finding satisfying alternatives?

In our sample, the timing of a first sexual experience varies little according to marital status: by the age of 20, three in four men had had their first sperm emission and, by the age of 30, about one in three had already masturbated. However, their first experience sexual intercourse is highly dependent on marital status: at the age of 30, only one in three never-married men (32 per cent) had had sexual intercourse at least once; married men in this age group logically had all had sexual intercourse (with Chi2 = 7.542**). At the age of 40, the share of never-married men having had sexual intercourse is not much greater: 35.3 per cent. In other words, by the age of 40, two in three never-married men have never experienced any partnered-sex. Of the 288 never-married respondents aged 30 or above, only 162 (56.2 per cent of the subsample) reported having had sexual intercourse at least once in their lifetime,Footnote ⁵⁰ and of those only 96 (33.3 per cent) reported having had sexual intercourse at least once in the 12 months preceding the survey (Table 4). Bachelors not only have much less partnered-sex than their married counterparts but they also differ in terms of partners, with a much lower average number during their lifetime (0.7 against 1.5 for married men)Footnote ⁵¹ and during the 12 months prior to the survey taking place (0.5 against 0.9). This confirms that marital status is a determinant of the number of sexual partners. However, it must be noted that the average number of sexual partners in China is particularly low compared to that found in other countries with admittedly very different socio-cultural contexts.Footnote ⁵²

Table 4: Sexual Behaviour by Marital Status and Age Group (%), JC County, 2008

Notes: p ≤ 0.01***; p ≤ 0.05**; p ≤ 0.1*; p > 0.1 ns.

Bachelors have, on the whole, less sexual intercourse than their married counterparts, although the youngest groups in both sets of men are more sexually active than the oldest. In JC county, the absence of a legitimate partner associated with bachelorhood therefore has a significant effect on partnered-sexual activity: only one in seven bachelors (14.6 per cent) reported having had their last sexual relations with a girlfriend, and this was predominantly a characteristic shared by the youngest (22.6 per cent against 8.1 per cent among those aged 40+). But despite having what is presumed to be a regular partner, these bachelors still had much less sexual intercourse than married men: 0.8 times a month in the 12 months preceding the survey. Therefore, it is not just the state of bachelorhood itself, but also the lack of marital-type cohabitation and possibly the limited privacy afforded by living with parents and/or siblings that appear to act as additional obstacles to the partnered-sexual activity of bachelors. This is in spite of the larger housing in rural China, which can provide more privacy to individual household members.Footnote ⁵³ It is also notable that among the bachelors who had their last sexual intercourse with a girlfriend, only seven (2.4 per cent of the sample) expected to marry within a year, presumably with the girlfriend in question, suggesting that the possibility of marriage is not determined only by access to a potential partner.

In this context, and assuming that most people look for an active sex life,Footnote ⁵⁴ finding satisfying alternatives to partnered-sex within marriage is assumed to be an issue for the bachelors. There are two main compensation practices: paid-for sex (with prostitutes) and masturbation. While masturbation is in theory accessible to everyone, the sex industry – which is said to be active in most rural areas – is likely to provide male farmers opportunities for nearby premarital sex.Footnote ⁵⁵ However, neither of these practices, even if more frequently reported in the present survey than in Pan's study,Footnote ⁵⁶ is very widespread: less than one in five bachelors (18.8 per cent, or 23.4 per cent of those aged 30–39 years and 15.0 per cent of those aged 40+) claimed to have paid for sexual intercourse,Footnote ⁵⁷ with no significant difference by age group. Interestingly, 4.9 per cent of the bachelors reported that their most recent sexual intercourse experience was with a prostitute (7.0 per cent of the youngest and 3.1 per cent of the oldest, with Chi2 = 15.603***), making prostitutes an infrequent alternative to partnered-sex within marriage in JC county.

Masturbation, although seen as an acceptable substitute for the lack of a sexual partner by approximately two in three men, was only practised by two in five of the men interviewed (40.3 per cent of the never-married and 36.6 per cent of the married, with no significant difference). Among them, just under half reported “always” or “often” achieving orgasm through masturbation. The low number of men reporting such episodes is consistent with the findings of Pan et al.'s surveyFootnote ⁵⁸ in which 55.2 per cent of males aged below 40 and 45.7 per cent of those aged 40 or above had masturbated.Footnote ⁵⁹ It can be partly attributed to the fact that, in China, masturbation is still widely regarded as immoral, detrimental to health and even a cause of male impotence.Footnote ⁶⁰ Such views are corroborated by our survey, which shows that one in two men (48.4 per cent irrespective of age group or marital status) believe frequent masturbation to be unhealthy. According to the survey, bachelors masturbated more than married men, but not much more (0.6 times on average during the month preceding the survey, as against 0.4 for married men). This difference is unlikely to compensate fully for their lower frequency of partnered-sex.

As reported in Table 5, just under half of all bachelors complained about the absence of sexual activity, suggesting, as assumed above, that the majority of others either have access to some form of sexual activity, or are settling for a sexless life. We therefore have two different configurations. Among those who did not complain about the absence of sexual activity (159 bachelors or 55.2 per cent of the sample), more than one in three (35.9 per cent with n = 57) recorded that they had never masturbated or had sexual intercourse during their lifetime, meaning that they are settling for a sexless life. The remaining 64.1 per cent (with n = 102) reported that they had masturbated and/or had sexual intercourse at least once in their lifetime, and therefore had access to some form of sexual activity before marriage (with Chi2 = 11.640***). However, this was far less than the sexual experiences reported by married men.

Table 5: Bachelors' Characteristics and Behaviours According to Whether or Not They Complain about Absence of Sexual Activity, JC County, 2008

Notes: Statistical significance: p ≤ 0.01***; p ≤ 0.05**; p ≤ 0.1*; p > 0.1 ns.

Interestingly, there are no significant differences between the characteristics and sexual behaviour of men who complain about the absence of sexual activity and those who do not. The most striking result is again that the bachelors who have never experienced any partnered-sex or masturbation – who are also older than the others – are on the whole the most disadvantaged: they are less educated, have lower average incomes and are more frequently engaged in agriculture only, confirming the statements above.