Urban-rural intermarriage provides an important perspective on the study of urban-rural integration in China. The majority of existing research works on this issue have focused on the change of intermarriage rate, but few studies have analyzed the formation mechanism of urban-rural intermarriage and its changes. Based on the theory of status exchange, social exclusion theory, and structural assimilation theory, this study puts forward three theoretical models to explain China’ s urban-rural intermarriage, which correspond to three sequential stages of urban-rural integration. Through an in-depth analysis of the data of the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, the study found that the proportion of urban-rural intermarriage rate was very low, but showed a clear upward trend over time. From 1978 to 1991, the status of urban an rural marriage exchange was very obvious. Meanwhile, the education level of rural side has a significant positive effect on urban-rural intermarriage, while the education level of urban side has a significant negative effect on it. Moreover, intermarriage showed an obvious phenomenon of high education in rural party and low education in urban party. As time went by, the explanatory power of status exchange theory on urban-rural intermarriages has gradually weakened, while social exclusion theory has been continuously enhanced. The negative effect of urban side ’ s education on urban-rural intermarriage tended to disappear after 2005, and the phenomenon of low deucation level of the urban party on inter-urban marriage tended to disappear, and the phenomenon of low education level of rural party in inter-urban marriage also basically died off. Therefore the pattern of urban-rural intermarriage has changed from status exchange stage to social exclusion stage. We argue that the change of intermarriage pattern indicates a huge periodic development of urban-rural integration. However, urban-rural intermarriage is still very difficult present and the lower class of rural society is still excluded from marrying urban people. Therefore, more comprehensive measures should be taken to further break down the social boundaries between rural and urban society and to further promote urban-rural integration in China.
