China Left Over Women

In the whole of China, one can now find 34 million more males than females. In big cities however women are the ones without a ring on their finger. They are successful, over 30, and labelled as “Sheng nu”, ‘Leftover women”. While the social stigma of being a single woman is universal, it seems particularly harmful, and difficult to overcome in China.

- Klaudia Lech

Chen Xin shares a nice big apartment with a girl friend in a central area of Beijing, she has an interesting job in an NGO specialized in environment. “But I’m 32”, she says, “and, at this age, it seems there are no available men for us. It is a very tiring process to look for a partner, the city is so big and when you go to parties, it’s full of beautiful women. It’s just so competitive!”. Like several other women interviewed for this reportage, Chen Xin goes through a litany of broken hopes: “Once I told a boy that I liked him”, she says “and he said he liked me too. He tried to get his family to meet me, but they refused. They rejected me because I was three years older than he was, and not originally from Beijing. I was so disappointed! I also felt he was a coward when he said he could not go against his family’s will. Maybe he himself believed that I was too old, that I was not right for him”.