Disability, family support and marriage in northeast China, 1789–1909

Marriage in historical China was vital and was organized largely by families to secure patrilineal continuity, yet the marriage consequences of disability in this setting remain poorly understood. This study examines the association between disability and men’s entry into first marriage and whether parental support mitigated this disadvantage in different ways. Using the China Multigenerational Panel Dataset-Liaoning (CMGPD-LN), a longitudinal register-based dataset covering 1749–1909, we compare transitions to first marriage among unmarried males aged 15–45 with and without disability across successive triennial observations. Kaplan-Meier estimates and discrete-time event-history models show that disability was associated with lower odds of entering first marriage in the subsequent three-year interval, and that this disadvantage persisted after controlling for individual-, household-, village-level covariates, and the grandfather fixed effects. Parental support, while generally conducive to marriage, operated in gendered ways in buffering the disadvantage associated with disability. Mother’s co-residence significantly narrowed the marriage gap between disabled and non-disabled males, whereas paternal socioeconomic status improved sons’ marriage chances more generally but did not specifically offset the disadvantage of being disabled. These findings provide new historical evidence on the marriage consequences of disability in a Chinese patriarchal society and show that the effect of family support was shaped by gendered parental roles rather than operating as a uniform resource.