We’ve heard stories of China’s – women who are beyond their late twenties and unmarried. But seldom do we hear about , or as they are called in China’s Laoya village, ‘bare branches’.
The Laoya village is home to villagers. Of them, 112 men between the ages of 30 and 55 are registered as single. Those figures are one of the reasons Laoya has been dubbed “bachelor village” by locals.
But to say these men face just as hard a time for being single as women do across China is both false and insensitive.
In a culture that places great importance on settling down, women get the shorter end of the stick with their value being measured on their ability to serve as a wife and mother. For men, however, conservative Chinese culture is more forgiving and taking into account a man’s accomplishments in education and career as well.
But the rise in unmarried men points to a more concerning cultural shift in society, or rather, lack thereof. writes - if you forget about gender for a moment - the plight of "leftover women" is actually a positive one when compared to men.
“The ‘leftover woman’ generally refers to a relatively successful ‘urban, professional female in her late twenties or older who is still single’ who has the ‘three highs’: high income, high education and high IQ. But ‘leftover men’ are at the other side of the social spectrum, as they generally have the so-called ‘three lows’: low income, low education and low IQ,” .
"I cannot find a wife, they migrate to somewhere else to work, then how can I find someone to marry?" Xiong Jigen, a 43-year-old bachelor living in Laoya, told .
That appears to be the main complaint for single men in Laoya: women move away from the village for work or study and find it very difficult to settle back down.
“Women don't want to settle down," said Xiong, later describing an ex of his as “almost as tall as” him and “quite extroverted”.
"I was in a relationship before," he said, "but it didn't work out. She complained that my village was not good for her, especially the roads."
Xiong says he can’t leave the village in order to find a wife since his livelihood and ageing relatives are settled here. Unfortunately for him, women see few opportunities to settle in Laoya alongside him.
The trickle down effects of the One Child policy in the 1980s can be felt today. The policy saw a rise in infanticide and a preference for male offspring resulting in a population with many more boys than girls. In China, there are .
Unfortunately, this doesn’t solve any problems for China’s single “leftover women”. As women in China embrace feminism, financial independence, and quality education, their male counterparts women to be the stereotypical doting wives and subservient mothers of their children.
Therein lies the problem.
