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12 to 15 percent of Chinese men won't be able to find mate within the next 7 years

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B

braves01

Banned
Source

The Atlantic said:
Cool as glass, a young couple strolls into the Tiffany & Co. attached to Beijing's four-star Peninsula Hotel, elegantly lit with custom crystal chandeliers. She grips his elbow; he's aloof. Epitomizing urban affluence in today's China, this male likely drives a slick car, owns an even slicker high-rise and is more than willing to shell out for a Western-style tuxedo, wedding cake, live music, and, of course, a platinum Tiffany ring.

In other words: he's rich.

By contrast, millions of his fellow rural countrymen will likely never know such splendor or even the joy of matrimony. These young males are known as "bare branches," trees without leaves, involuntary bachelors demographically destined to a life without a wife or child. An estimated 40 to 50 million bare branches are scattered around the nation, and according to Quanbao Jiang and Jesús Sánchez-Barricarte, authors of the article "Bride Price in China: The Obstacle to 'Bare Branches' Seeking Marriage," they tend to be concentrated in rural or poverty-stricken areas.

It's a reversal of hundreds of years of gender discrimination in China. A longstanding preference for boys -- presumed better able to assist in backbreaking farm work -- has played out in sex selection through abortion and infanticide. After the country instituted its One-Child Policy in 1978, it gave most families only one chance at that coveted baby boy.

This only exacerbated the imbalance. Now, an estimated 12 to 15 percent of Chinese men -- a population nearly the size of Texas -- will be unable to find a mate within the next seven years.

This harsh reality has begun to change the country's patriarchal system, yielding the power of choosing a spouse to females. And many are electing for comfort. On the mega-popular dating show "If You Are the One," contestant Ma Nuo perfectly encapsulated China's mood when she famously declared that she would "rather cry in a BMW than laugh on the backseat of a bicycle." Indeed, 70 percent of single women in a 2011 survey said financial considerations ranked above all else when selecting a husband.

The cost of rural females marrying up is leaving the men from their villages waiting and wanting. Hard-pressed to compete with higher-earning males and unable to spring for the car and perhaps the house that some young women see as a matrimonial prerequisite, forlorn bachelors subsequently fall victim to what Jiang and Sánchez-Barricarte deemed the "poor->bare branch->poorer" cycle.

As Deborah Jian Lee and Sushma Subramanian noted in their recent Pulitzer Center report, this cycle is perpetuated by an age stigma. That is, regardless of socioeconomic status, wifeless men over 30 years old are derisively referred to as "leftovers;" the stuff of to-go boxes. Interviews by the Institute of Social and Family Medicine at Zhejiang University found that these societal pressures have led them to feel aimless, angry and alone. Bleaker still, whole villages exist without one unmarried woman. Fueled by sexual frustration, marginalized by neighbors, these islanded bachelors are increasingly likely to drink, fight, gamble, and frequent prostitutes.

"I get very lonely. No one cares about me, and I have no one to speak to when I go home. I sometimes get so drunk that I vomit," a 36-year-old migrant worker told researchers. "When that happens, there's no one to clean up after me."
Click to expand...

I said damn.

Related: Number of GAF users expected to increase by roughly the population of Texas in the next 7 years.
 
T

threetri333

Banned
Darn culture, women brings life to the world; more valuable than males.

Edit, don't know how to cross out words:

Darn culture, women are responsible for bring life to the world; they should not be undervalued.
 
DiscoJer

DiscoJer

Member
I think the US has a problem with this, too, to be honest.

At least I have. It's a lot harder to find dates after you're 30. (Again, at least for me)
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
"I get very lonely. No one cares about me, and I have no one to speak to when I go home. I sometimes get so drunk that I vomit," a 36-year-old migrant worker told researchers. "When that happens, there's no one to clean up after me."

Lol.
 
P

params7

Banned
threetri333 said:
Darn culture, women brings life to the world; more valuable than males.
Click to expand...

That is a fucked up analogy. In nature male:female ratio is 1:1.

Yin and Yang are not better than each other, but absolute equals, one is not better than the other because one cannot survive without the other.

China is going to head into a lot of social problems because of the skewed ratio.
 
R

rando14

Member
Ferrio said:
Sounds reasonable to me. You don't have to be a gold digger to have it your #1 priority.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a recipe for misery, though I suppose cultural differences might teach one to just put up with anything as long as you're financially "secure".
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
rando14 said:
Sounds like a recipe for misery, though I suppose cultural differences might teach one to just put up with anything as long as you're financially "secure".
Click to expand...

I think you're taking the statement to the extreme. Just because it's your #1 priority doesn't mean you have to settle for an asshole or someone you're not attracted to.
 
P

params7

Banned
timetokill said:
If he abuses me I can still cry in a BMW instead of on the back of a poor man's bike

Winning
Click to expand...

This is how (in a very generalized manner) marriages work in any nation suffering from overpopulation and poverty. Females place more priority on wealth status than women may do in nations with more distributed wealth parity. I can tell you its the same for India right now as well. Male/Female ratio is horribly skewed there also.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
I sometimes get so drunk that I vomit," a 36-year-old migrant worker told researchers. "When that happens, there's no one to clean up after me."
Click to expand...
This mentality is part of the problem, that if he had a wife she'd be expected to clean up after him?
 
A

AllenShrz

Member
India has similar issues.

Many indians chose to abort if they are expecting a female, to the point that the government made illegal to tell their parents the sex of the baby. They still do, illegally of course.
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
monchi-kun said:
This is why online PC gaming is gonna get even bigger in China. What else are these eternal bachelors gonna do?
Click to expand...

Go to war for the greater glory of China in place of a family and offspring to continue their legacy.

China is in for some major shit, this isn't a few hundred thousand or even a couple million but tens of millions of dudes. It will probably be worse for the Chinese government more than foreign governments though. Civil unrest and the like.
 
p_xavier

p_xavier

Authorized Fister
Can't they just send them to Japan, where women can't find mates or lovers due to the otaku culture?
 
P

params7

Banned
AllenShrz said:
India has similar issues.

Many indians chose to abort if they are expecting a female, to the point that the Government made illegal to tell their parents the sex of the baby. They still do illegally of course.
Click to expand...

*Many - Applies to demographic of people living below the poverty scale and in non-metro cities.

Infanticide is non-existent in middle-upper classes now in India, but yeah, its still widespread in the nation overall.
 
V

Violet_0

Banned
they 'import' their wives from other poor SE Asian countries like Laos. They're also more subservient than Chinese women, apparently.
 
E

Eighty Deuce

Banned
JeFfRey said:
Can't they just send them to Japan, where women can't find mates or lovers due to the otaku culture?
Click to expand...

Dsq5H0y.jpg
 
T

Toa TAK

Banned
Rocket Punch said:
I think you mean: The parents did that to their children.
Click to expand...

I do. As many have already stated, it's going to be rough in the future for China. I know it's part of their culture and all when it comes to having a lil dude, but this is just unfortunate on all levels.
 
I

iamblades

Member
params7 said:
That is a fucked up analogy. In nature male:female ratio is 1:1.

Yin and Yang are not better than each other, but absolute equals, one is not better than the other because one cannot survive without the other.

China is going to head into a lot of social problems because of the skewed ratio.
Click to expand...

That's not exactly true, the sex ratio at birth for humans is more like 1.05-1.10 to adjust for the higher male death rate.

The value judgement he made is clearly bullshit, but one can survive without(or with a much smaller number of) the other.

A single man and many women can repopulate a planet while the reverse isn't true.
 
Exr

Exr

Member
"I get very lonely. No one cares about me, and I have no one to speak to when I go home. I sometimes get so drunk that I vomit," a 36-year-old migrant worker told researchers. "When that happens, there's no one to clean up after me."

That really bummed me out. What's the solution? It's not like the inequities in China are going to get any better financially anytime soon... And you can't just fight and booze that shit away. Everyone has to fuck something...
 
H

H.Protagonist

[-_-]/
Really makes one extra scared for the future. The government is going to have to alleviate or redirect that frustration somewhere, and I fear I'm not optimistic enough to believe they'll be able to counter it all with just a few imported wives. :/
 
S

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
H.Protagonist said:
Really makes one extra scared for the future. The government is going to have to alleviate or redirect that frustration somewhere, and I fear I'm not optimistic enough to believe they'll be able to counter it all with just a few imported wives. :/
Click to expand...
I don't think the government is going to do anything that involves moving people around. These men are just going to drink themselves to an early grave. So maybe they'll subsidize booze.
 
M

monchi-kun

Member
Exr said:
"I get very lonely. No one cares about me, and I have no one to speak to when I go home. I sometimes get so drunk that I vomit," a 36-year-old migrant worker told researchers. "When that happens, there's no one to clean up after me."

That really bummed me out. What's the solution? It's not like the inequities in China are going to get any better financially anytime soon... And you can't just fight and booze that shit away. Everyone has to fuck something...
Click to expand...

Kidnapped brides will become a serious concern. It's already happening in China and in 7 years it will just get worse.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Pastry said:
The reason for your edit is awesome.


This is hardly part of the problem. If your wife is so drunk that she is throwing up you take care of her, if you're throwing up she takes care of you. If you're both throwing up well sorry but you're screwed.
Click to expand...

The cleaning up bit alone isn't problematic, no, but to me it suggested a patriarchial culture in which women are meant to be caretakes of men.
 
shira

shira

Member
threetri333 said:
Darn culture, women brings life to the world; more valuable than males.

Edit, don't know how to cross out words:

Darn culture, women are responsible for bring life to the world; they should not be undervalued.
Click to expand...

This is the country that killed birds because they were ruining crops. Guess what happened.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
What did they think was going to happen when they instituted the one-child policy? I'm seriously asking. I mean, they did that in order to try to curb overpopulation right? I guess they just didn't expect the gender imbalance.

I'd bring up the word "immigration," but I don't know what China's general view is on that issue.
 
C

Cow Mengde

Banned
I'm so glad I live in America.

Now you guys can see why Chinese women are generalized as gold diggers. I mean, generalization is wrong, but their mentality doesn't help.

If he abuses me I can still cry in a BMW instead of on the back of a poor man's bike
Click to expand...

Stop embarrassing our culture!

China will be the perfect place to study the effects of a huge environmental and social disaster.
 
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