China's "Leftover" Women

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Written by Leta Hong Fincher, Ms. Magazine

Last week, 26-year-old newlywed college graduate Li Fang (a pseudonym) explained to me over dinner why she had been in such a rush to marry:

If I hadn’t gotten married now, I would still have to date for at least one or two years. Then I would already have passed the best child-bearing age and I would be a leftover woman.

In China, the sexist term “leftover woman,” sheng nu, is widely used to describe an urban, professional female over the age of 27 who is still single. This derogatory term has been aggressively disseminated by the Chinese government, warning women that they will become spinsters if they do not marry by the time they turn 30. The irony of the media campaign is that China’s sex-ratio imbalance has resulted in a surplus of tens of millions of men who will not be able to find a bride.

In 2007, China’s Ministry of Education added the term “leftover woman” to its official lexicon, according to state media reports. In 2010, the All-China Women’s Federation and other government groups carried out a nationwide survey of more than 30,000 people in 31 provinces. Their findings on “leftover women” have been publicized repeatedly by China’s official media.

I have roughly translated some excerpts from the official write-up of the survey (unfortunately leaving out the rich resonance of the Chinese puns.)

The article uses the heading “See What Category of ‘Leftover’ You Belong to.” The first category is leftover women aged 25 to 27 years, who are called “leftover fighters,” sheng dou shi, a play on the title of a popular martial arts film. It says these women “still have the courage to fight for a partner.”

The next category is 28- to 30-year-old women, or “the ones who must triumph,” bi sheng ke, a play on the Chinese name for Pizza Hut. It says these women have limited opportunities for romance because their careers leave them “no time for the hunt.”

The final category, 35 and older, is called the “master class of leftover women.” The term qi tian da sheng plays on the name of an ancient Chinese legend, the Monkey King. It says this category of woman “has a luxury apartment, private car and a company, so why did she become a leftover woman?”

Results from the survey continue to be recycled frequently in the Chinese media, including this report on the official Xinhua News website, November 11: “China’s Leftover Women Unite This Singles Day.” The article says, “More than 90 percent of men surveyed said women should marry before 27 to avoid becoming unwanted.” The message to women: If you want to stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting married in this country, don’t demand too much from your man.

What I find uniquely disturbing is that a respected American newspaper has regurgitated the results of the “leftover women” survey without questioning the sexist nature of the term, the origins of the study or the motivations of the government in disseminating it. The New York Times published an article in April based on the results of the Chinese survey, describing China’s real-estate boom and the pressure on men in China to buy a home in order to find a bride. It says “more than 70 percent of single women in a recent survey said they would tie the knot only with a prospective husband who owned a home” and provides a helpful link to the Chinese survey, but makes no mention about the survey’s extensive descriptions of “leftover women.” Rather, the Times details how Chinese women will stop at nothing to coerce a man to give her a home before she agrees to marry:

With such women on the prowl, even men who do have their own homes have come up with techniques to weed out the covetous and the inordinately materialistic.

It adds that because of China’s sex-ratio imbalance, as many as 24 million men could be perpetual bachelors by 2020: “The marriage competition is fierce and statistically, women hold the cards.”

China’s preference for boys, combined with its one-child policy, has resulted in the abortion of tens of millions of female fetuses. But does the resulting sex-ratio imbalance mean that women really have the upper hand in the marriage market? Although some women no doubt have married for money, I have so far found very little evidence that women overall have turned their scarcity into economic gain. On the contrary, my research suggests that Chinese women have largely missed out on what is arguably the biggest accumulation of real estate wealth in history, valued at more than $17 trillion in 2010, according to HSBC Bank. Many women have been shut out of the explosion of housing wealth because homes appreciating exponentially in value tend to be registered solely in the man’s name. Chinese parents tend to buy homes for sons but not daughters. And women often transfer all of their financial assets to their husband or boyfriend to finance the purchase of a home registered in the man’s name alone.

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Photo from randomwire via flickr

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Mary L.

5:05AM PST on Dec 12, 2011

Amazing how absolutely stupid it sounds. Instead of attacking successful women, they should be praised and honored and shown off.

All the men need to get their acts together so they are desirable to these women. Or is this a plot to keep the population decrease going?

send a green star

li S.

8:38PM PST on Dec 3, 2011

Most chinese men also want to marry as quickly as possible. Because family is so important. Most chinese women only want to have a family. Most friends of mine, buy the house together with their husband. And most chinese husbands give their salary to their wives.Also a lot of wives give their salary to their husbands. Because most chinese don't want to divorce, marriage means together with each other until old until dead.That means, two people become one people. So they put everything together, money together, responsibility togeter,life together,and so on.

7:53PM PST on Dec 3, 2011

I think it is no matter with the government. It is the culture is different. Not use the occidental standpoint, please use the oriental standpoint.To let chinese have no family, the same with to let occidental have no love. Family is NO.1 for most chinese. Family and career are the two legs of the life.Family is one life promise. Family is the port of your heart, it is the warmest place. when you meet the dangerous or difficult, only your family support you and help you. Most chinese women want to own home, own husband and children. House means the home, the place of their family.No people want to be alone until old. The children also need the real love of their born parents.The children can't have no father or have no mother.If parents together and cooperate to educate or teach the children,the children will have a very good future.

Suze O.

6:50AM PST on Dec 1, 2011

This is no different than the term "old maid" used in my youth as a young woman. And I was the generation where our lives were determined by the men in our lives. Fortunately, that ended on a positive note....

Amanda C.

10:26PM PST on Nov 30, 2011

I too, would be a left over woman by choice.

Monica D.

9:00PM PST on Nov 30, 2011

Not nice.It sounds like a policy of putting pressure on women to marry.

Marie Therese H.

4:36PM PST on Nov 30, 2011

If I were in China, I would be one of the left over women, BY CHOICE!!!

Katz R.

2:19PM PST on Nov 30, 2011

it would be better to be a left over woman and China should have done something about the population issue some time ago [and not by electing to only have males, which created this so called new problem] it sounds like they are coming up with new techniques and tactics to hold back successful women with fear that doesn't need to exist. Would much rather be successful and have a lover and everything in my name than a ball and chain with nothing

Ian F.

1:16PM PST on Nov 30, 2011

Don't be a statistic! Everybody can and will eventually find their own way.
Anyway with overpopulation, oil prices and debt crisis looming over us, who can afford romantic fantasies these days? Gone are the days when one romantically gunned down the natives and put up shop to marry a gorgeous princees and have a huge family. Unsustainable today I'm afraid.
It's niche happiness one looks for nowadays. And if you keep looking, you probably will find it.
cheers!

Berny P.

7:19AM PST on Nov 30, 2011

iN sHANGHAI AND BEI JING THERE ARE MANY ...LEFT OVER WOMEN AND BELEIVE ME THEY ARE VERY HAPPY ABOUT IT....THEY WORK,TRAVEL, SHOP A LOT, PARTY, HAVE THEIR OWN PLACE AND ARE DOING VERY WELL THANK YOU!

sO IT IS NOT AS BAD AS THE ARTICLE MAKES OUT!

ENJOY LIFE GIRLS!