BACKGROUND Understanding the trend toward later and less marriage is particularly important in low-fertility societies where alternatives to marriage are limited and childbearing outside of marriage remains rare. OBJECTIVE Our goal in this paper is to advance our understanding of the wide variety of explanations offered for later and less marriage in Japan by focusing explicitly on marriage intentions and desires. METHODS Using two sources of nationally representative data, we describe the prevalence of positive, negative, and passive marriage intentions and desires among men and women who have never been married. We also examine socioeconomic differences in intentions, patterns of marriage desires across young adulthood, and relationships between marriage desires and outcomes. By linking three pathways to later and less marriage (rejection of marriage, failure to realize marriage desires, and unplanned drifting into singlehood) to specific theoretical frameworks, we generate indirect insights into explanations for later and less marriage. CONCLUSIONS Although the large majority of unmarried men and women want to marry, less than half of respondents married across nine waves of the Japanese Life Course Panel Survey. Among those who remained unmarried, roughly two-thirds can be classified as 'drifting' into singlehood, about 30% as 'failing to realize marriage desires,' and no more than 5% as 'rejecting marriage.' CONTRIBUTION By extending the small body of research on marriage intentions and desires, this study provides a framework for thinking broadly about explanations for later and less marriage in Japan and highlights the importance of both failure to realize marriage desires and unplanned drifting into singlehood.

中文翻译：

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日本的婚姻意图、愿望和通向晚婚和少婚的途径。

背景 了解晚婚和少婚趋势在低生育率社会尤为重要，在这些社会中，婚姻的替代选择有限，婚外生育仍然很少见。目标我们在本文中的目标是通过明确关注婚姻意图和愿望，提高我们对日本晚婚和少婚的各种解释的理解。方法 使用两个具有全国代表性的数据来​​源，我们描述了从未结过婚的男性和女性中积极、消极和消极的婚姻意图和愿望的普遍性。我们还研究了社会经济在意图、青年期的婚姻愿望模式以及婚姻愿望与结果之间的关系方面的差异。通过将导致晚婚和少婚的三种途径（拒绝结婚、无法实现婚姻愿望和无计划地漂流成单身）与特定的理论框架联系起来，我们对晚婚和少婚的解释产生了间接的见解。结论 尽管绝大多数未婚男女都想结婚，但在日本生命历程小组调查的九轮调查中，只有不到一半的受访者结婚。在未婚者中，大约有三分之二可以归类为“漂泊”单身，约30%归为“无法实现婚姻愿望”，不超过5%归为“拒绝结婚”。贡献 通过扩展关于婚姻意图和愿望的小型研究，