Monday, 9 March 2009
Career women join lonely hearts’ club as downturn bites
They’re intelligent, well educated and financially independent, but an increasing number of mainland women are struggling to find a partner and turning to professional matchmakers to bag a husband and improved security amid the global financial crisis.
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Career women join lonely hearts’ club as downturn bites
Fiona Tam
9 March 2009
They’re intelligent, well educated and financially independent, but an increasing number of mainland women are struggling to find a partner and turning to professional matchmakers to bag a husband and improved security amid the global financial crisis.
The nation’s financial woes are allowing more career women to shift their focus away from work and pay more attention to their daily happiness and long-term security. As the country marked International Women’s Day yesterday, a senior manger from a hi-tech company in Hangzhou told Xinhua the most wanted Women’s Day gifts for her subordinates were “boyfriends and husbands”, which she was unable to provide.
Many matchmaking agencies have reported a sharp increase in the number of registrations on their websites, especially since the collapse of Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers in September.
One popular matchmaking website on the mainland said it had seen a 20 per cent rise in white-collar single women registering since the start of the economic downturn, Xinhua reported.
“Those who used to value their careers more and refused to face up to the prospect of marriage during the economic boom are now more eager to find a husband through matchmaking agencies,” said the website’s Fang Fang.
“Now, nearly 90 per cent of our female members earn more than 36,000 yuan [HK$41,000] a year, meeting the widely accepted mark for the middle class on the mainland. Many are successful career women,” she said.
Sociology professor Jiang Qianjin from Zhejiang University attributed the matchmaking boom to single, white-collar women who wanted to regain some security in married life - after losing some of their financial independence and sense of security in the financial crisis.
He said women who were eager to share their burden now had time to meet future partners amid the recession. But almost all matchmakers complained that female professionals who were seeking marriage refused to lower their criteria for future husbands during the hard financial times.
Looks, occupation, wealth and social status of the family of potential mates are still considered carefully by fussy single women before agencies can arrange a meeting.
Although population authorities estimate millions of bachelors are unable to find a bride due to the nation’s gender imbalance, unmarried female professionals claim they cannot find suitable partners.
Senior bank manager Cui Shan, 33, said her well-paid career was a perennial obstacle for her to meet potential mates because few Chinese men could accept their wives might earn more than them.
According to official numbers, there are tens of thousands of single women who are now entering their 30s, and they are viewed as an embarrassment by some.
Chinese traditionally believe women should marry in their 20s.
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