Bridget Jones has a generation of Chinese sisters. They are unmarried, aged 30 or above and known as shengnu or leftover women.
Shengnu was once an offensive term and popular only in Shanghai but an increase in the number of singles has meant these women are now a small social force in cities like Beijing. A popular newspaper reported recently: “The era of the shengnu is here”.
Shengnu also carry the unflattering title of 3S women, meaning single, born in the seventies and considered “stuck” (although many would insist they have chosen to remain single). They are educated and well paid but remain unmarried despite being past the age traditionally considered most appropriate for getting hitched in China.
The issue is not about the availability of men. China has a well-documented gender imbalance, due mainly to a centuries-old preference for males, particularly in rural areas. Just this week, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said this imbalance could lead to 24 million men of marrying age being unable to find a partner by 2020.
State-run media reported that the rise of shengnu is linked to a teaching in traditional Chinese culture about the social status of husband and wife. “The patriarch in Qian Zhongshu’s novel, Fortress Besieged, famously says: “I wish my daughter to marry a man from a family of higher standing and my son to marry a woman of the lower rank,” the newspaper quoted.
A shengnu writing in the same newspaper provided a more modern insight: “Five years ago, and just before I entered college, my mother gave me the most important advice of my life: five criteria for selecting my future boyfriend.”
“He should be perfectly healthy and none of his family members should have suffered from serious health problems; he should be better educated than me; he should be at least 10 cm taller than me; he should have a better financial background than me; and he should have single eyelids.
“Modern Chinese women tell the world that they are men’s equals. While they want to be treated the same as men in education and employment, when it comes to relationships, they seek out unbalanced situations.”
The social phenomenon was recently documented in a play titled Leftover Lady. It told the story of a 29-year-old woman who was well educated and well paid but very particular when choosing her husband. The production has been a national success and staged in more than 100 times in major Chinese cities last year.
However, not all shengnu are focused on finding a husband. A single 31-year-old friend told me that she would prefer to focus on her career. She said she did not consider marriage a necessity, as it was for her mother’s generation, and was cautious of the rising divorce rate, which has been steadily increasing since economic reforms began in the 1970s.
“Maybe I am single because I’m a journalist and intelligent and not at home in the kitchen and wanting to look after them,” she said.
A survey released Monday found that about 41 percent of single women in China were worried they might not be able to find the right person to marry. However, only 8.1 percent of single men interviewed admitted that they had the same concern, said the survey, which was conducted over three years and questioned about 2.2 million people.
About 40 percent of women admitted they had high expectations for their future husbands but 44 percent said they would not lower their standards just in order to get married.
Fan Aitian, general secretary of the China Association of Marriage and Family Studies, which commissioned the survey along with a matchmaking website, said: “Many single people, especially women, are confused in their criteria of a suitable spouse because of pressure from society and work.”
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