Recent studies carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics in China show that about one in five adult women are not married. It seems to be a growing trend in the equally fast developing China. So many women are making strong decisions to deviate from the norm and shun marriage. They would rather face their career and businesses or studies. The reasons are not just limited to these but these ones take the cake.
However this decision has not met all round approval. In fact most of these women are being criticized, made mockery of it even downright persecuted by even their own family members. Sheng Nu (which means "leftover lady") is the derogatory term used to describe such women. Another term is the three S’s: Single, Seventy and Stuck.
China's culture is well rooted in patriarchy and a love for family and breeding and thus when a lady is well into her twenties and is not even thinking of settling down, she begins to look odd to the average Chinese. Her closest family members begin to nag her into getting married and producing kids. And if she refuses she becomes a source of public ridicule as even her own immediate family seem tainted by her action or more appropriately, her inaction. CNN reported recently that seventy percent of female university graduates in China are scared of becoming a Sheng Nu.
It can be said that this palpable rise in unmarried adult Chinese women can be linked to education and the favorable economic situation in the country. In 2013, Forbes magazine reported that eleven out of every twenty self-made women in the world is a Chinese woman. Unlike in the past where women survived on their husband's financial security, women can now own businesses, have a career and live independently without the help of a man or their family members.
I’m quite intrigued that this development is not been applauded in an over populated and increasingly progressive China. It is sad that in this twenty-first century, women are still being put in a box where their relevance to society is only seen in the light of their family or child-bearing skills. Women have waxed strong in education, business, career, politics and so many other areas. To reduce them to only being important when they are wives and or mothers is deeply saddening. They are important, first of all on their own just like every other person is or should be. Their value should not be tied to archaic cultural roles that should have no place in this modern and enlightened world.
Being single is not a curse and a cause for ridicule. People should be allowed to choose for themselves what they want and what suits them and would make them happy. Instead of pushing people into making decisions that might backfire tomorrow. In this way, we can learn to appreciate people for what and who they are instead of who and what we want or need them to be.
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(images courtesy of pixabay)
You have argued that the primary reasons for women becoming leftover is due to them embarking on their own careers and having more choice in what role they want in society other than being mothers.
I would say you have left out one other reason which perhaps is more significant than the rest. A women's expectation for a partner has largely centred around their ability to provide financial security, and they expect this immediately. This means a house and a car. Of course, this used to be more realistic for the average person than it is today.
Which leads back to your point, women with these high expectations have two choices, they can either risk looking for that most ideal financially competent partner, or they can become more financially competent themselves.
As a girl who grew up in China, and reaching the left over age, I know from my own experience and perspective as well as many of my friends that it is our own expectations that give us unrealistic measures of what is considered a good partner. The potential partners are reduced very significantly because of what we want.
I was going to comment on the very same thing. We have a large population of successful, ambitious young Asian women working in Vancouver. One works in my office and has spoken at length about her family's expectations for her now that she has reached the ripe old age of 26. They want her to return home, get married and bust out the babies pronto. Strange considering these are the same parents who expected so much from her while she was at university and pressured her to pursue a career in law or dentistry. (She chose public relations instead but has a side hustle as a translator. ) My colleague said that even if she wished to marry (and she doesn't, not yet), she'd be limited to a very narrow selection of men. Those who are equally ambitious and educated have already married and are having children. Those her own age are working overseas and can choose to marry 20-year-olds once they return home. Since she refuses to marry "down" she's decided to make Canada her permanent home and expects to marry a non-Asian. This is one of the reasons why you see so many youngish Asian women (aged 25-32) with white guys here in Vancouver.
See my reply to @sweetsssj. Seems to me she needs to stay in the "working hard, fighting to be upper middle class" zone, so she can marry a man who needs a similar synergy. Otherwise she will rise up out of the level where any man that would interest her would also be interested in her. She seems to flirting with that danger zone.
I have written a supplementary article in response to this article and as an expansion to some of the points I made in the above reply. I mention some alternative angles as to why leftover women exist, and why they do not necessarily have to be successful!
Check check it out!
China's Leftover Women - Single and Not necessarily successful
Of course, I am happy to debate and discuss!
In china if you don't own a house you aren't a worthy man. Be rich or be nothing. Funny how that BS never comes up in these discussions...
Assuming you've exceeded upper middle class into the rich zone, then probably the uber successful men who would meet your interest wouldn't be interested in you for the most part, because what benefit can they gain from a successful wife?
So you've basically relegated yourself to either only sex+romance with the successful men but not marriage, or to marrying down. Sad fact of life. Do you see any other option?
But seems if you reach that level of success, why do you even need marriage? Because you had a traditional childhood and want to make your own family? In that case, it seems you'd probably have to marry down to a man of much lower status. That man is basically going to be a slave to you, which is going to cause other abnormalities. No matter how I slice it, it seems uber successful (very rich) women and traditional families seem to be mostly incongruent. Even Bill Gates married far down with Melinda Gates (not her family, but her personal level of status at Microsoft).
I love that you wrote an article about this! I learned about this recently. and I love that women are taking charge and running their own businesses and such. I live in a state Utah, Where our marriage age is significantly lower. Everyone seems so old fashioned here and we are pushed into marriage at young ages, Well mostly the people who are Mormon.
I have done my best to ignore that, I feel like I can somewhat relate to these "leftover" women ALREADY, at just the age of 23, Because I have chosen to start my own business and focus on traveling and my own development instead of childbearing and getting married. It's nice to see that women are doing what they WANT rather than being stuck in traditional roles.
I dunno. Caution. See my reply to @sweetsssj.
Perhaps it would best to marry while both of you are still working towards upper middle class. But then if you have children, you may inhibit your earning power (not necessarily, but likely).
It seems to be a tradeoff. I'd think carefully about that.
I cannot help but think that we as "modern" people think we know oh so much more than the combined wisdom of the hundreds of generations that came before us.
And perhaps we do, in things like science and technology. But when it comes to human nature, perhaps we should try to understand why certain rules and taboos were in place, rather than summarily dismissing them as outdated bigotry.
As several commenters have alluded to, women in general do not marry down, and also, as a group (with plenty of exceptions, of course) they tend to prefer slightly older men, or at least the same age.
Couple those facts with the fact that men prefer younger women in general, and you reach the conclusion that, once again, several commenters have also pointed to: after a certain age, it will be that much harder for them to find a match, because many of the men her age or slightly older have already found someone, and because with each passing year, the number of men interested steadily decreases.
May not be politically correct and all that, but who cares. Steemit has not been taken over by the left yet.
You also forgot something very important in your article, and that is the overabundance of men in China, due to past policies.
This makes chinese women very picky, as the men are salivating to find themselves a partner, full on knowing there are less available women than men.
Somehow, even in this situation, the women there complain that it is hard to find a man. Draw your conclusions (hint: hypergamy).
And finally, patriarchy (like most things in life) has very little to do with it.
Wow, the numbers are staggering considering the raw amount of people living in China... My heart goes out to them and know that they will find a way to deal with this as Chinese women are very resourceful. Namaste :)
There is / was an expression in Japan directed at women of a certain age - 'christmas cake'. Nobody wants it after the 25th. :D
I hope you can make a good post about this 'christmas cake'. I would love to read all about it.
This is great! New expression to me
Times are changing and so are a lot of the traditional values of many Chinese families. I can see this in my own family. Although I am male, Chinese, and born in the US, my family is definitely an example of both the traditional and non-traditional variety. My parents migrated to the US for college and although raised traditionally, are very nontraditional. You can see the difference between how my grandparents think and how my parents think. As for me - if I were to marry (let's say in this example a Chinese woman) I would prefer to be with someone who is somewhat dependent and not always reliant on me to take care of her. I want someone who can think for herself and assert her own thoughts, wants, and desires. Relationships should be a partnership where one can learn from each other. The success of one leads to the success of the other.
A power couple that compliments each other is far better, more successful, and happy then a couple where one leads and the other follows.
Outstanding post! I have many Chinese woman friends in Xian and Beijing and they speak about this change. I am delighted to witness the rise of this new generation of powerful and successful women. #GirlPower
Women should not only be beautiful, demure and home. They can pursue dreams and conquer the world.
women from all developed countries at one point in history had to deal with this or similar issues. Not easy being a single, successful woman in China for this generation. Hopefully the next generation will be more on board. I'm a Canadian man living in China for almost 4 years. I had girlfriend here who fit this description to the T. She was born 1982 and I'm 1980. She often said to me she couldn't have a Chinese bf because she will have to quit her job, which she loved and paid more than most men make.
A point i didn't pick up on if you wrote it. She also said
"I make too much money to marry a Chinese man. But the Chinese men who make more already have wife and 'children'. " (note the plural).
Her job did get in the way a lot. She was often abroad or out of city with work. She chose work over a relationship, which is normal in the west I think.
In western society women generally marry across or up, and men generally marry across or down.
In my opinion this is driven by natural female hypergomy, men usually have little concern for their mates socio-economic status and are more focused on biologocal fitness.
So hypergomy together with a drop in male performance (less education and lower job prospects than in the past) is resulting in a growing pool of woman trying to find an acceptable mate from an ever shrinking pool of eligible men.
To further aggravate the situation the men in the higher status pool are acceptable to a very large pool of woman, and as I said men are concerned with biological fitness which means the younger, fitter and healthier a woman is, the more attractive she is.
Understandably it takes time to complete collage and develop a career which means that woman are now usually a little older when they start looking to settle down, but, the men they want to settle down with are generally settled already or looking for younger woman further reducing the size of the pool of availible high status men.
None of this is a value judgement, this is natural behaviour and is playing out a little differently for men, look at Japan with their 'Herbivore Men' or 'MGTOW' who are reacting to the same pressures.
It boggles the mind that there are still societies where women are ridiculed or even persecuted for self expression and independence. I think India is an even more extreme example, considering that they have a female leader. Women constitute over 50% of the worlds population, so it's statistically impossible for every woman to marry into a monogamous relationship. But history has shown that an oppressed people work even harder towards freedom and self-expression. I think before long China will see a woman in the Politburo. They have made great strides in recent years, and women's rights are a logical step in the chain.
Rights have nothing to do with the phenomenon being discussed on this page.
What about the right of every human being to be considered equal, and not have tags or expectations placed on them because of age, race, gender or sexual orientation? The fact that women are treated like second class citizens in some countries is most certainly about rights. African Americans were legally allowed to go to school, hold jobs, own businesses in the US in the 1960's, but they were often ridiculed for doing so, and were discouraged from trying to better themselves. The movement to change this was called the Civil RIGHTS Movement.
Freedom of choice and independence have always been ridiculed at the start. But over time, people see the benefits of not clinging to outdated beliefs. It will take time...
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Previously, men are not allowed to approach women in power, but now women have shown that they can better manage staff in some areas than men.
We witnessed a unique change in Chinese society now!
Thank you for your interesting thoughts
Better be alone than in a bad company.
If you can't find a fitting partner, do not settle down for second best.
Or more often, what is offered is second worst...
This doesn't automatically mean the car and house but emotional and mental qualities.
nice article. interesting. up for you
nice article. interesting to read. up for this
I must suck for the men being that they had a one child policy and most parents wanted boys.
Couldn't this also be because there are far more women than men in China? Lol
Very interesting article. I think it is good that there are opportunities for women to become all they can and want to be and if a male becomes part of the picture that is fine. People shouldn't have to select a partner to have the things they want.
@msgivings being single and successful does not need to be curse, or root to be rediculed in the society, however the question is. What kind of society We are talking about? If exploring traditional Chinese way of bringing up and contrasting with successful and single women this will not go very well together for multiple reasons. This topic however is still very hot in every single country as they are women who would like to persue in career than in family. What is wrong about it? It is their personal choice. For me is more about immature and boxed societies which find difficult to accept any source of diversity. This does not fit to the generally accepted norm :) Not everyone are ready to confirm to the norm which compromise their personal aspiration. Very good article.
The amount of attention this phenomenon is getting is certainly also compounded by the fact that China's One Child policy created a generation where the ratio of males to females is 1.15:1. As this already created a large pool of Chinese men who would be unable to find a partner, it is no wonder that Chinese society is reacting negatively to women who they feel are not fulfilling their familial duties.
Perhaps I should move to China!