The “leftover woman” trope has been causing a stir in China in recent years – especially following the “yellowing pearls” article published on the All-China Women’s Federation website in 2012. This is “sheng nv” – urban, educated women over twenty-seven who are still single – uncovered.



Photo: Matthijs Koster

To an outsider, the “sheng nv” phenomenon may seem like just another facet of China’s more conservative society, a cultural phenomenon whose subtleties will always befuddle us to an extent, much like the thorny issue of face. After all, Chinese people are generally expected to marry younger than in many Western nations, where, indeed, not marrying at all is also an option. Though the median age of marriage is rising in China – especially in big cities such as Beijing, where the average age at first marriage in 2012 was 27, a year up from 2009 – there is still intense pressure to marry while under 30, and preferably before 27. Filial piety, so often cited by sociologists, plays a big part in this cultural issue: to follow social norms is to show respect to one’s parents and honor the family.

What are “left-over” women?

As it turns out, darker forces are at work. “Sheng nv” (literally ‘leftover women’, “剩女”) is officially defined as urban educated women over the age of 27, who are still single – a part of the workforce that has unquestionably contributed to China’s massive economic breakthrough. So how did urban educated women end up getting the short end of the stick, derided in the media, labelled as undesirable and somehow deficient, after everything they’ve done for the good of the nation?

The shame game

In 2007, the Chinese government issued an edict regarding the Social and Family Planning Program, addressing the gender imbalance and saying urgent action was needed to halt the “threat to social stability” that it poses. A state-sponsored campaign to shame women into rushing into marriage began, spurred on by comics in newspapers such as the People’s Daily and supposedly objective articles published on the Internet, including the well-known piece put out by the All-China Women’s Federation: "Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family … Girls with an average or ugly appearance … hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is they don't realize that, as women age, they are worth less and less, so by the time they get their MA or PhD, they are already old, like yellowed pearls."

It is no coincidence that the women being targeted are “educated” and “urban”: they will, after all, produce the most “high-quality” children, who will continue to further the development of the country. By this logic, urban women ought to complete their degrees – with top marks, naturally – and then turn to the all-important quest for a husband.

The “leftover women” campaign has had practical implications from the beginning, deepening the gender wealth gap in China. A commonly held notion about Chinese women is that their first interest when getting married is whether or not their potential suitor owns a home. What often goes unspoken is the fact that in countless cases, women and their parents contribute financially to the purchase of the house. This has several implications.

As Leta Hong Fincher, a sociologist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, has noted: “Marriage is inextricably linked to housing in China, and when women are pressured into marrying, they almost inevitably enter into this pressure to buy a home and fall prey to financial, social and regulatory forces that end up hurting women. For a number of reasons, women don’t feel comfortable asking to put their names on housing deeds, which means males walk away with full ownership of the marital home. Wealth acquired through the property and its appreciation goes directly to the male.”

In 2011, China’s Marriage Law was amended to state that “marital property belongs to the person whose name is on the home deed” – where previously it belonged to both parties. In practice, this means women often walk away with nothing in case of a divorce – and stay-at-home women, encouraged to put their careers on the back-burner, thanks in part to the “Sheng Nv” campaign, are particularly vulnerable.

As has been pointed out in the past, women tend to “marry up”: the man usually comes from a higher socioeconomic bracket. This is true in many countries, but more so in China, where the cultural norm is that the man’s superiority in terms of wealth and schooling is almost always a given. Thus, a highly-educated woman will be less likely to marry a man who has not been educated to an equal or higher degree. For a number of reasons, highly educated Chinese women outnumber men of the same status who are also unmarried in their late twenties, lessening their marriage prospects.

What is never mentioned in the campaign to shame these women is the hard fact that at birth, Chinese men outnumber Chinese women: 118 boys to every 100 girls born, a consequence in part of the now-loosened One Child Policy. The aim of the government in promoting the idea of the unlovable “leftover woman” is twofold: “high-quality”, educated elites will have well-educated, wealthy children, who will contribute to China’s development; and social stability will not be threatened by a high number of frustrated bachelors.

To an outsider, the openness of the state campaign encouraging China’s “leftover women” to settle may come as a surprise. Cohabitation before marriage is seen as very normal in much of Europe and America; not marrying is becoming increasingly normal; in general, life decisions are made by the individual, with a lesser degree of social pressure.

It is unclear how the “leftover women” issue will pan out. Women’s rights organizations in China are thin on the ground, and many women succumb to family pressure to marry. Others, increasingly, are staying single, in defiance of what they see as an oppressive social norm that holds no relevance to their life. What is certain is that these highly-educated women are paving the way for unprecedented social change, in China and elsewhere. And for this, they ought to be applauded, not derided.

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Keywords: Sheng Nv gender imbalance in China leftover women