Courtship Imbalance: 45 Percent of Beijing's Singles Are Female, 55 Percent Are Male

Steven Schwankert | Feb 25, 2016 10:00 am | 6 comments | 7432 reads

[Editor's Note: Due to a reporting error, this story originally incorrectly stated that the percentage of women in Beijing aged 30-44 who are single now stands at 45 percent. In fact the statistics indicate that 45 percent of all single people between the ages 30 and 44 in Beijing are female. The story has been rewritten.]

Single ladies: Feel free to be choosy about a marriage partner as single males outnumber single females in Beijing 55% to 45%, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics.

That means that for every six eligible males, there are only five eligible women.

However, it appears that imbalance has improved over 2011, when the male-female ratio stood at 60-40, the bureau stated.

The survey polled 1 percent of Beijing's population (about 210,000 people) and found that 81.1 percent of single women had a university degree, while 92.2 percent of them live in the urbanized part of the city.

"Although single women in cities are often well-educated and financially independent, Chinese men tend to marry younger, less educated women than themselves," the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In contrast, "most of the unmarried men lived in rural areas and more than half of them had only junior high school education," Xinhua reported.

More stories by this author here.

Email: stevenschwankert@thebeijinger.com
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Photo: People's Daily

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PatrickLi's picture PatrickLi Submitted by Guest on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 14:25

featherinwind wrote:

"Charge physically"? haha, come on, getting furious and physically attacking a woman would only validate my comment. Men, you guys can so easily get offended, take it easy, dude. You have your right to disagree but I have mine to say what I feel, and I am not the only one to feel this way. Btw, I am not saying every single man in China has lower qualities, but the number of men with good manners and integrity (regardless of their age group, education level and financial status) is shrinking in China. Luckily I have the ability to sense that anger and violent temperament in guys like you 10 miles away, so the chance of your physical charge is quite slim, but I would feel sorry for the girl who will end up with you as she has to watch out all the time for the consequence of saying something unpleasant to your ear, oh, scary~~~

Yeah so here's my official statement:

Chinese women generally are a lesser kind than Chinese men; they are also a lesser kind than women of other races.

Please don't feel offended. 

Here's also my piece of advice,

I guess you always fancy about being courted by a well-mannered, the so-called Western gentlemen-like snob, but let me warn you from this group. From my personal experience and my gut feeling as a man: douches are more likely to be well-mannered than angry.

People become angry because they still truly believe in something better, and many angry men are very interesting people anyway.

PatrickLi's picture PatrickLi Submitted by Guest on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 10:01

featherinwind wrote:

As one of these 30-44 single-woman group, or labelled the "left over women" in China, you know, a lot of us really don't have much interest in finding a husband due to the ever deteriorating quality of men in China in general, and neither do we see happiness very much linked with getting married. Probably those who still want to have a baby feel the pressure of finding someone soon since the clock is ticking, otherwise it is really no big deal.Men in general can not handle being alone for a long time, but women can and can pretty much enjoy themselves. 

"the ever deteriorating quality of men in China in general"

Having heard similar comments in person for several times, I used to think it only shows the stupidity of the comment-maker, but now I think of something else---a general lack of deterrent. So I've decided that if I'd ever hear a similar comment again, which is quite possible in the near future, I will definitely charge the comment-maker physcially so that I'd make sure she or he knows there's a consequence for saying so. You and your kind better watch your mouth.  

Living in China makes me realize that the improvement of the country depends upon physical deterrent because the law enforcement is a joke and the rule of law is a sham. Let's say someone steals your bike, what you gonna do? Call the police? Or bring a lawsuit? None of them will work, and the only way for you to get your bike back---which to my moral standard is the right thing to do---is to find the thief, charge him physically, and force him to give back your bike. But in China most people, quite strangely, no longer believes that their bike is still entitled to them once it is stolen, and no longer regard their right to have the bike back, and I find that unacceptable.

The same applies to people who make discriminatory comments. What if I say "women in China generally have lower quality?" Should I get away with it. Definitely not. This society will never make progress if everyone leaves the punishment to the offender's reduced karma.

Steven Schwankert's picture Steven Schwankert Submitted by Guest on Thu, 02/25/2016 - 21:58

I know many women who fell into this category: university education or higher, successful career, owned their own homes and cars, but tapped out of Beijing because they wanted more: a better companion, a better job, a better life. Almost all of them live abroad now. Hard to understand how a society can afford to lose so much talent and not act to change the situation.

admin's picture admin Submitted by Guest on Thu, 02/25/2016 - 13:04

Mojo-risin wrote:
How many men of the same age group are single in Beijing.  Presumably the number is much lower but it's not stated.  That's always the implication in this argument about the left over women.  But I never understand how that is possible - more boys are born then girls, if the same numer are heterosexual, there should be more single men than women.  Even if the men marry younger women, that would leave a lot fewer women for the younger men to marry so they'd end up getting older and unmarried.  

According to this article, there are 6 umarried men of marriagable age in Beijing for every 5 women in Beijing, so yes indeed there is a surplus of men.

The ratio would be likely even more skewed towards men except for the fact that from a societal point of view, it's easier for divorced men to remarry (as opposed to divorced women, who face larger stigmas).

 

 

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PatrickLi's picture PatrickLi Submitted by Guest on Thu, 02/25/2016 - 10:42

Mojo-risin wrote:

How many men of the same age group are single in Beijing.  Presumably the number is much lower but it's not stated.  That's always the implication in this argument about the left over women.  But I never understand how that is possible - more boys are born then girls, if the same numer are heterosexual, there should be more single men than women.  Even if the men marry younger women, that would leave a lot fewer women for the younger men to marry so they'd end up getting older and unmarried.  

More boys are born than girls---this might only hold in rural China where violation of the one-child policy and abortion based upon the embyro's sex are rampant. In city like Beijing and other more developed areas, having a second child is highly unlikely because of the social judgement and fine that would come with it, and abortion based upon the embryo's sex was unlikely either---you rarely find a Beijing family that decides to have an abortion just because the baby would be a girl. 

And these kids born to families from more developed areas are likely to end up in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhuangzhou, etc, which means that the current pattern of urban population in China doesn't necessarily reflect the pattern of the overall population of the country. In general, there are more men than women, but in cities, this might not hold. 

I kind of suspect that the upper in the social ladder, you see more women than men. A friend of mine went to a boarding school near Boston. He told me that when was there, he was the only Chinese guy, but there were more than 10 Chinese girls. When I was in college, my class had 18 international students from the greater China area, including Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and among the 18 of us, 3 were guys. And I think this situation may apply to many other schools.

It's kind of strange because I somehow feel that in contemporary China, girls who are brought up well are much more easily to succeed than guys. For example an important skill to succeed in China is to flatter your lingdao, and imagine that you have a good-looking, well-mannered, 25-year old female college graduate, who looks great in her dress and cosmetics, speaks good English and shines like a star, how is it possible that she will not succeed in her career in this guanxi-based market? But guys get angry easily and many are consciously cynical. This doesn't have to be a bad trait per se, but it certainly doesn't fit the Chinese scenario where most lingdao value obedience, not resistance.

Anyways this might also be the result of the social construction of gender. 

Mojo-risin's picture Mojo-risin Submitted by Guest on Thu, 02/25/2016 - 10:12

How many men of the same age group are single in Beijing. Presumably the number is much lower but it's not stated. That's always the implication in this argument about the left over women. But I never understand how that is possible - more boys are born then girls, if the same numer are heterosexual, there should be more single men than women. Even if the men marry younger women, that would leave a lot fewer women for the younger men to marry so they'd end up getting older and unmarried.

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