The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics has found that the number of single women in Beijing is rising, accounting for 45 percent of all singles between the ages of 30 and 44, an increase of 40 percent from the last time the survey was held five years ago.

And as befitting the “leftover woman” model, these single women are usually city residents with good educations. Ninety-three percent of these women live in urban areas, and 81 percent hold college degrees or higher. By contrast, the survey found that single men in China usually live in rural areas. More than half of these single men only have a junior high school education at best.

If you’re thinking a quirky rom-com scenario is the ideal circumstance to match-up these unlikely pairs, you’d be wrong. Xinhua reports that Chinese men tend to marry younger, less educated women than themselves.

According to some experts, the rise of leftover women may be simply due to the fact that women are better enjoying their rights and freedoms. Writer Luo Aiping, 38,  has said the high numbers of leftover women in China is a sign of progress. Luo maintains that real achievement for women is attaining equal respect and freedom.

The Beijing survey was taken of one percent of the population as a way to supplement the national census.

Related:

• Hong Kong’s Gender Imbalance Leaving a Generation of Unmarried Women
• Guangdong has the most singles in China, but “leftover men” a problem
• Evolution of Dating in China: Trading Pressure for Preference

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According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the result is 30 million single Chinese men who cannot find a wife, something which may destabilize society as the risks of anti-social and violent behavior increase.

But hey, maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Xie Zuoshi, a professor with the School of Economics and International Trade at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, said the problem can be resolved with simple economics.

Xie suggests that the problem of 30 million to 40 million unmarried men is a problem of high-income versus low income, and can be solved by allowing low-income earning men to share a wife.

Here’s how Xie (seen above) explained his suggestion on his blog:

Males with high-incomes will get married easier because they can afford a wife. For low-income earners, one solution is to allow polyandry. In fact, in some rural areas in China, there are situations in which brothers of a family share one wife and they live happily together.

Xie considers the primal sex drive to be the most pressing issues of these 30 million unmarried men, and not their need to fall in love with their soul mate nor the need to raise a family to fulfill their filial devotion as well as to ensure someone will look after them in their old age. Xie says fulfilling the sexual needs of these men is of primary importance, no matter how it’s done:

The problem of sex must be addressed. And if it can’t be taken care of legally, then it must be done illegally. If it can’t be solved under the light of day, then it must be solved in the dark of night.

Xie doesn’t see any other way out of this mess:

Of course, we don’t have to allow polygomous marriages nor extra-marital sexual behavior, but then we must accept having an unstable society. Thirty million single men don’t necessarily have to bring about serious social problems, but it will most definitely bring sexual freedom. And if it does indeed bring about serious problems, well, then it will be the fault of the law and people’s perceptions.

These days, women expect a man to have a house and car before getting married. If they don’t, they look for wives in rural areas instead. If that doesn’t turn up any potential mates, some men are known to look to other countries, like Vietnam, even if they don’t speak the same language.

Xie said that if legalized, polyandry would be a perfect solution to solve the 30 million single men’s sexual needs, which he believed could be the most important factor in igniting social unrest.

But that’s not all. To solve the problem of China’s 30 unmarried men, Xie believes that women from outside China, with Africa and Southeast Asia as named examples, will be “more attracted to marry Chinese men… with better economic development.” As well, Xie says legalizing gay marriage will help relieve the problem to some degree as well.

However, Xie doesn’t have answers on how these solutions can be accepted by China’s notoriously traditional society.

Abolished in modern times, China did have a tradition of polygomous marriages, but they usually involved a man taking more than one wife. This was usually an indicator of the man’s wealth, and is a tradition that carries on today by the practice of taking on more than one mistress, who traditionally must have their financial needs taken care of, such as being provided with a house.

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But that’s not the toughest part. That would be going on xiangqin (相亲 “xiāngqīn”), something that is similar to the Western notion of “dating”, except you’re under pressure by your family to quickly find the partner of your dreams to start a family. Given the tremendous responsibility involved, some Chinese eschew their xiangqin duties even though they represent a massive break from traditional times when most marriages were arranged.

So what’s a single guy in China to do these days? Thousands are enrolling in a school to learn how to properly date a girl. Business is booming for schools like the one profiled in the report. Here, single men are taught the proper etiquette and skills that will help transform them from bumbling bachelors into happily married men.

With courses like “Love Diagnosis”, “How to Find a Boy/Girlfriend”, “How to Find a Wife/Husband”, “Love Retrieval”, and “How to Build Your Appearance”, tuition costs anywhere from several hundred yuan to RMB 20,000. One of the courses that runs for seven days costs RMB 7,000.

Instructors at the unnamed school have lots of advice when dealing with Chinese women. A teacher named Fan Chen explained to students that getting a girlfriend is not about chasing after them, but providing a personal framework and manner to which they will be attracted on their own accord. Another teacher known as “Wander” said, “Unrelenting efforts towards a girl for which you give her medicine when she is sick and food when she is hungry will only ever award you by getting into her ‘friendzone’.”

How to use social media

One of the lessons deals with the importance of how your portrait is seen on social media, two things that serve as the first impression for a woman.

For this reason, teachers at the school emphasize that your social media circle should be made to look very busy, and that particular attention should be paid to your portrait. To help give the impression of having high value, Students at the school should use a photograph of themselves with a classy background featuring a 5-star hotel or a yacht.students at the school should use a photograph of themselves with a classy background featuring a 5-star hotel or a yacht.

As explained by an instructor, “A women’s intuition is much stronger than a man’s when it comes to social interaction. Her judgement of you will come from these few details.”

The “hot water” trick

The school doesn’t divulge many details of its curriculum, but the report does explain one way of impressing a Chinese girl from an anecdote given by a teacher.

Called the “hot water” trick, the idea is to walk into an upscale nightclub or bar and immediately ask for two cups of hot water the moment you walk in. Later, after finding a girl to speak with, the waiter will come with your hot water. This will impress the new girl you just met because she will have seen you walk in and receive hot water without asking This will impress the new girl you just met because she will have seen you walk in and receive hot water without asking, making it appear like you a regular customer at the club. Upon leaving, you should take the waiter aside for a few private words, again making it look like you are on good terms with the wait staff at the establishment.

It may be that the entire course at the dating school is full of little techniques like this one, making dating a breeze. However, as Wander explains, his students have their own personal reasons for coming to the dating school, and it’s not necessarily for dating:

90 percent of the men who come here don’t do it in order to meet more women. Instead, they are here to give themselves another skill. They want to learn a secret technique, but not to use it in order to hurt someone else, but to protect themselves.

Wander knows the type of student that comes to his school:

They don’t like themselves. The vast majority of them are inarticulate, and don’t know what they want. Whatever you tell them will be answered with a “sure sure sure” and many nods. They feel very inferior.

And Wander knows he has his work cut out for him:

Some of our students dress poorly. They don’t have any original thoughts, no prior experience with girls. Upon reaching the age of 30, they are still muddleheaded, and still haven’t yet gotten serious over their own career. This is the average man of China.

That’s a stinging indictment, but it’s clear that these men need to make a change. As the teachers at the school directly tell the students:

Chinese girls like men with money and looks, but here you are holding a stack of cash and photographing yourself holding onto a steering wheel. Will they like you? Of course not!

As the report says, a Chinese man born during the 90s has a 1 in 6 chance of remaining single his entire life, a rate that falls to 1 in 7 for Chinese men born during the 00s.

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You can be a successful, independent Chinese woman with your own career, but you can’t control what you do with the eggs in your own body – at least, not without a man in your life. That’s because if a woman wants to freeze her own eggs to give birth in the future, she needs to meet an important requirement: having a husband.

China’s Ministry of Health has said that any Chinese couples interested in using assisted reproductive technology must present their marriage certificate, identity cards and birth permits and prove that at least one partner is suffering from fertility difficulties if they want to use the technology.

The ban comes after a controversy erupted earlier this summer when actor and director Xu Jinglei (seen below) was reported to have had her eggs frozen in the USA. The outcry over the procedure had to do with Xu’s age, 41, and the fact that she remains unmarried.

Netizens felt Xu was far too old to be considering having a baby of her own through any means, and should refrain from “playing God”. Meanwhile, Sina News reports that egg-freezing is a growing trend among women in Chinese hospitals who are following in the footsteps of celebrities like Xu.

For her part, Xu only had personal misgivings, saying, “The only thing I regret is that I am a little bit late in doing so.”  Xu explained her decision to store her eggs was the only way to make up for her past mistakes if she failed to get married and have a baby.

The issue of leftover women is a taboo subject in China, with society generally accepting that women should get married before the age of 27. This fixed age is important because pregnancies are not encouraged to take place after 30 years of age. Experts warn that postponing pregnancy can lead to a host of problems and urge women to reconsider using techniques such as egg freezing.

Regulations set by the Ministry of Health now state that freezing eggs solely for the purpose of preserving or extending fertility, surrogacy and trading in ova are all illegal acts. The ban was met with harsh criticism online. Here’s how popular blogger and Nescafe spokesperson Han Han lashed out at the Ministry of Health:

So it’s not possible to want to have a child without first getting married to a man? You can’t use your own eggs? Women don’t have the right to independently have their own babies? In addition to this, birth permits aren’t given to unmarried women who get pregnant, meaning that these children won’t even be able to get a hukou (residence permit) in the future unless they pay a large fine as a punishment. Does bearing children require a man for a husband? I can’t accept this kind of male chauvinism.

As pointed out by Chinese media, China has no major technological obstacles to successful egg freezing, only that there is an ethical line drawn by society as to how this assisted reproductive technology will be used. However, ethical standards aren’t impeding the progress of certain scientific research in China, such as stem cell research, which is occurring in a unregulated environment that has been called the “Wild Wild West”.

Nature reports that despite guidelines set by China’s Ministry of Health, clinics continue to provide untested medical treatments derived from stem cell research.

So while single women in China don’t have the right to control their own reproductive systems, at least Chinese scientists seem to be enjoying their freedom in China. As neurobiologist Luo Minmin said, “If I had stayed in America, the chances of making a discovery would have been lower. Here, people are willing to take risks. They give you money, and essentially you can do whatever you want.”

Related:

• Hong Kong’s Gender Imbalance Leaving a Generation of Unmarried Women
• Guangdong Has The 2nd Largest Population of “Leftover Women” in China
• Guangdong has the most singles in China, but “leftover men” a problem
• University student becomes celebrity for marrying and having kids early
• Anhui Bill Proposes “Pink Holidays” For Menstruating Women
• Did the Times Censor a Story on Foreign Abortions in China?

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Under pressure from family and society, some Chinese singles are taking matters into their own hands. In order to widen the possibilities for finding a successful marriage partner, Chinese men and women are standing out in public places and trying to recruit themselves a prospective husband or wife.

Shanghai is home to a long-standing tradition of a “xiangqin corner” located in the city’s People’s Square, where anxious parents gather to  trumpet the better qualities of their single children as a marriage material.

One Hubei woman is cutting out the middleman and advertising herself directly, something she has done every weekend since last August.

Su Jingjing is 30 years old, and she seems to know what she wants, advertising her demands for a husband that is “wealthy, morally upright, polite, and has a Shanghai hukou“. To make her financial demands clear, Su has specified an annual salary of ten million yuan.

Su’s demands don’t stop there. “He should be a virgin because I am as well,” she said. “My goal won’t change, and I don’t care if people laugh at me.”

Meanwhile, in an unrelated story in Hubei, a man is using similar marketing methods to seek a girlfriend on the Wuchang campus of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

The 23 year-old man named Ji is offering a one-month trial period to interested parties, adding that “favorable clients can be granted full tenure”.

As part of his recruitment display, Ji advertised his own demands of a potential girlfriend including age, height, education, and weight. Ji pointedly rejects any potential girlfriends that have demands for material possessions or wealth, which could limit his options.

Having graduated two years ago and currently working in advertising, Ji explained that he is rather busy with work and doesn’t meet women often.

As with Su Jingjing’s situation, Ji has not been successful so far in finding a proper candidate.

In a recent survey that collected data from over 30,000 participants, a study found that 82 percent of singles lack the courage to start a relationship and that 76 percent of young people of “marriageable age” are afraid of getting married.

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As compiled by China Daily, here’s a list of trending terms used by netizens to describe all things related to love:

We’re not sure #5 counts as “friends with benefits”, since the term concerns casual sex with both friends and strangers. And even if netizens are familiar with the movie Gone Girl, which didn’t get a theatrical release in China last year, they’re likely not using the phrase as intended in #6 but rather its Chinese equivalent 腹黑女 (fùhēinǚ), which loosely translates to “two-faced woman”. In any event, there’s some complicated relationship verbiage out there; make sure you keep up to date.

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A national study examining the relationship habits of Chinese men and women found that the root causes of “singleness” include a tendency to stay at home and a lack of money.

The report, awkwardly titled “2014-15 Investigative Report into the Relationship Habits of Chinese Men and Women”, found that 50 percent of Chinese people don’t lead “carefree” single lives. Rather, 47 percent of men and 51 percent of women were choosing to stay home on weekends.

The study also found that China’s unmarried adults are typically less educated and earn less money. A full 53 percent of single Chinese men with a salary below RMB 2,000 claim to stay home instead of going out to meet a potential partner. That ratio rises to 64 percent for Chinese women.

Compounding this problem is the fact that the Chinese character used to describe a person that prefers staying at home is the same word used to describe a “nerd” or “geek”, or as they say in Japan, “okatu”. By itself, 宅 (zhái) means “residence” or “home”, but when used as 宅男 (zháinán), it roughly translates to an obsessive man who would rather play video games or watch anime than go outside.

While the report doesn’t explicitly point a finger at nerds and geeks, reference to the term “宅”, makes it a difficult implication to ignore.

The report offers some interesting insight into the mind of the modern Chinese singleton. Chinese single men prefer a woman who is straight-forward, is willing to do the majority of the house work, and is independent, at least “a little bit”. Chinese single women also prefer a man who is straight-forward, and appreciate someone who likes to exercise and can cook. The single men said that looks aren’t important, while single women said they want a man who has a high salary but can come home and change a baby’s diapers.

Relieved from arranged marriages, it could be that modern Chinese people are using their newfound freedoms as a way to geek out on their computers. However, as being straight-forward is one of the more ubiquitous traits of the classical nerd, perhaps they have a better chance of finding that special someone than they think.

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A woman reads single men’s profiles posted on a dating board.

Guangdong, the most populous Province in Southern China, is not only a draw for migrant workers; it also draws large numbers of single women. According to a list released by dating website, jiayuan.com., Guangdong has the second largest population of “leftover women” in China, second only to Beijing. Single women aged 27+ are generally considered to be ‘leftover women”, while men aged 30+ are considered “leftover men”.

The dating site attributed the high numbers of single women to the Cities’ work pressures, fast pace and lifestyle: about 80 percent reported that their life revolved around going to work and returning home. About 30 percent said they had no time for a relationship.

According to the report, Henan is home to the highest rate of bachelors, or “leftover men”, with 74 percent. The Yangcheng Evening News cited another report, indicating that “leftover” men and women invariably work as journalists, lawyers or public relations professionals. Journalists account for almost 20 percent of the China’s total leftover population, followed closely by lawyers at 18 percent, the report said. Among leftover men, computer techs are most likely to have a hard time finding a partner because, “they are introverted and socially awkward”.

Photos: China Daily 

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The report “The 2013 China Singles Perspective” stated that there are 74.3 “leftover women” for every 100 “leftover men” in Shenzhen.  Although the ratio of female to male residents of the city was once 7:1, men now outnumber women by 1.18 to 1. Men have outnumbered women since late 2010.

But a lack of available members of the opposite sex is not the only reason so many people are single in Guangdong. Baihe.com, China’s most famous matchmaking website, claims that the growing number of single people also has something to do with particular living customs and work pressure.

A survey done by the website shows that a fast-paced lifestyle makes single people in Guangdong too busy to date, China Radio International reported.

Although the number of men unable to find a marriage partner is known to be a major social time bomb , the issue of leftover women also gets a great deal of media attention.

As well as being a day during which single people can celebrate and give each other gifts, November 11 has established itself as China’s busiest day for e-commerce in recent years.

#Correction: In the second paragraph, we had said men outnumber women by 118 to 1. Of course, we meant 1.18 to 1.

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