Traditionally, Chinese culture puts great value on boys, particularly among the Han majority. A long history of son preference, China’s One-child Policy that introduced in 1978 has led to the overwhelming abortion of female foetuses, along with a severely unbalanced over-proportion of men to women. China is the world’s most populated country at almost of 1.4 billion people and approximately 30 million more men than women will reach adulthood by 2020.
The issue I will raise in regards to my cases is that China’s growing problem of too many single men due to an imbalanced gender ratio of China. China will face a growing number of young men who will never marry due to the country’s one-child policy. By 2030, more than a quarter of Chinese men in their late 30s will never have married. Those men who will be more likely to lose out in the competition for brides are the men from countryside, the poor, uneducated and from rural population. This is a serious social problem where 1 in every 4 adult men in Chinese society will have never married. Could this change the social and cultural dynamics of China?
If a man cannot find a woman to marry in his peer group, perhaps he will find greater opportunity to marry a girl of a younger generation. By then, perhaps this man will have saved a little more money and may be desirable enough for a younger woman (and that young woman’s family) to consider. I read from the famous news updating in the internet few months ago. There was a very pretty young university student girl has married to a man who is nearly 30 years older than her. He was very rich but it looked like a father and a daughter from their picture. In fact, this is already a part of China’s reality today. It is quite common to meet Chinese couples where the man is 10, 20 or 30 years older than his wife. Chinese men are already putting off marriage until they can properly afford to provide for a wife and family. Perhaps the demographics of 2030 will show this trend to strengthen and become even more commonplace in the population instead of shrinking.
We can think of a “Queer theory” of homosexuality whether it is a genetic or social outcome. However, when if homosexuality is in part influenced by social factors, then it is worthwhile to explore what impact such a large population of unmarried men might have on the issue of sexual orientation. There should be much less marginalization on homosexuals and deconstruction in mainstream of heterosexual discourse as there is already a thriving LGBT community and subculture in China. Anyhow will this significant gender imbalance have any effect on the perspective of the LGBT community in the China’s future mainstream consciousness as ‘coming out’ continues to find acceptance and support in the younger generations?
One in four Chinese men will never get married to a women. Seriously, if homosexuality is in fact influenced the most by social factors, then we should expect a surge in homosexual behavior in the country. China is very straightforward on how it views the LGBT community, so it should be extremely interesting to see how things develop in the future; whether there’s a paradigm shift.
The prospect of never finding a life partner can be one of the greatest fears in a person’s life. In a culture like China’s, where the mainstream societal expectation continues to put heavy emphasis on progeny, family network strength and family unit establishment as a benefit to status-building, for these one in four adult Chinese males, being single adds extra dimensions of undesirability. Deep personal anger and frustrations must inevitably be a by product of these societal pressures.
Many factors contribute to the number of men who will never find a mate. Economic inequality, for one, leaves a great many poor young men unable to attract a wife. When a society allows powerful men to take several wives, too few women remain for many poor men to take even a single wife. But most dramatically of all, male-biased sex ratios consign the excess men to never having a family of their own.
As a result, young men are hair-trigger sensitive to their circumstances, and when the number of men who will never find a mate rises, so does the intensity of the striving. Young men discount their futures and take ridiculous risks in order to improve their prospects. They also become more violent, rising more readily to perceived slights and insults, and starting more fights — often over trivial issues. These are the triggers for most man-on-man assaults and homicides. In fact, China is already feeling the effects of so many bare branches. The parts of China with the most male-biased sex ratios are experiencing a variety of other maladies, all tied to the presence of too many young men. Gambling, alcohol and drug abuse, kidnapping and trafficking of women are rising steeply in China.
If these single men will be found predominantly in single demographic namely rural, poor and uneducated men, what we might see is the emergence of a distinct subgroup of people, or new class segregation. An entire class of potentially angry, frustrated, relatively poor and uneducated single men can mean serious threats to societal stability, if this group builds a class identity that feels antagonized by society as a whole. China’s history is full of examples when a group lashes out in defiance and/or violence. This potential new class of single, frustrated men will number in the tens of millions in 2030.
But just as urgently, China needs creative large-scale solutions to the problems that unprecedented cohorts of bare branches will cause as they come of age over the next two decades. Those millions of disaffected young men will not only present a danger to themselves, but those living alongside them.
There are also a number of examples in history of the Chinese (and other Asian cultures) enduring harsh, distressed, unfair circumstances for generations. It speaks to the resilience and strength of Chinese culture in helping the particular afflicted group align its interests with the general collective society, enabling them to live out their lives enduring the pains of their life situation.
Perhaps this group of single men will not affect anything socially or culturally, but instead stay silent and endure their circumstance as other groups of Chinese have done in the past. For this to happen though will depend on the state and strength of China’s collective culture in the coming 20 years.
The Chinese government has been aware of these demographic trends for some time now. They have known, likely before the rest of the world did, that China’s fertility rate fell below the minimum population-replacement fertility rate (2.1 children per family) more than two decades ago. So why hasn’t the government done anything if it can see the problems that may lie ahead?
The more immediate challenges China faces must be addressed first. Enacting and maintaining the one-child policy alleviated growing pressures on agriculture and natural resources to give China a chance to shift industries and redirect capital into transforming China into an industrial nation and then a privatized economy. Without first accomplishing the short-term goals, China will never be in a position with the right resources to solve any longer-term issues.
Second, having a unified, single-minded governing body and a mass society that generally trusts and believes in the decisions of its government does have its unique advantages. And one of those is the ability to enact sweeping and often extreme changes very quickly. The Chinese government thirty years ago asked a nation to limit child bearing to one per family. It is not inconceivable that the same government can ask this same nation thirty years later to double its children–for the betterment of society.
While the official government rhetoric up until now has shown no changes in the One Child Policy, we are starting to see experimentation in a few selected demographics, and the creation of small policy loopholes that are allowing more Chinese families to legally have more than one child. A good friend of mine, who is a former U.N. officer working on the issue of China’s birth and fertility, concurs with the expectation that China will sooner rather than later reverse its stance on the one-child policy and devise some new form of incentive to drive birthrates up.
The question is whether the incentives will be enough. One of the biggest concerns facing Chinese families today is how to afford raising one child, let alone two. As a recent article from Reuters explains, some couples who have the opportunity to have a second child still choose only to have one as the costs of living and education are so substantial. In our own research work at China Youthology, we observe an increasing number of young post-80’s and 90’s kids who say they have no desire to have any children at all. They’re simply not interested in a life with parenting responsibilities.
What this could all mean for the Chinese government is that something a bit stronger than incentives may be needed in order for fertility rates to rise again. But if there is any country that has the political audacity and ability to implement something so drastic, it is China.
However, for this coming generation of frustrated, single men, any policy changes now are too little too late. This emerging reality is almost here. The only thing we can do now is develop a richer and stronger Chinese culture so they can find some relief from any feelings of alienation or frustration. New initiatives that will help cohesion of family, community and collective social units will be integral in enabling those unable to find a life-partner to cope and have other life-meanings to pursue.
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