November 11 is single’s day (11.11) here in the Land of the Eternal Summer of the Hua Peoples. One of the most common conversations I have here with locals (particularly old neighbor ladies) goes something like: “Where are you from?” “The US” “Are you married?” “No, I’m still quite young and like my freedom” “Oh well you must have a girlfriend” “No, not right now. I really like my freedom.” “Impossible! You must have a girlfriend. You’re so nice. Do you like white girls or Shanghainese girls?” “I dunno I guess both are okay.”

Anyway, a lot of time is spent defending status as a 光棍 (lit. ‘the branch that does not bear leaves’). I’m pretty sure this branch hasn’t borne any leaves in a while, hence bachelor. As a result, it’s often necessary to extoll the virtues of singlehood. We in the West sometimes romanticize the status, whereas here it’s (in some sense) viewed as a sort of abnormality?

The concern seems unwarranted; though perhaps the old ladies are onto something: bachelors (the young and frustrated variety like me) are a big security risk, according to Valerie Hudson. From WaPost about the book:

According to sociologists, young adult men with no stake in society — of the lowest socioeconomic classes and with little chance of forming families of their own — are much more prone to attempt to improve their situation through violent and criminal behavior in a strategy of coalitional aggression with other bare branches.

Political instability in two big, heavily-armed nations, located right next to each other with previously existing border disputes; what could possibly go wrong… To some extent, the argument also sounds like something of a corollary to “the most influential political movement in the world today consists of disaffected young men willing to blow themselves up.”

A significant worry, in my mind, is how women in China will be treated in the coming decades. Without enough to go around their ‘relative status’ may very well go up in certain contexts, as they can be more selective of their choices of mates; but that will leave a lot of poorer men without women. Sex trade and violent sex crimes will increase. A simple theoretic framework would suggest: “some females will be chosen by high-status males on a 1:1 ratio, and potentially even attract or occupy more as the relative rewards to being a high-status male go up. The remaining women will face an even more skewed distribution, and low-status males will compete amongst each other for the left-over women. Assuming competition amongst the low-status cohort is mostly homogenous, they will probably be forced to (or rather be forced to force) the remaining women into various types of sharing arrangements.” (Highly recommend the movie 盲山 for an example of this process.) There will also be a widening age differential as older men marry younger women. Again, this does not bode well for the 18-30-frustrated-maybe-violent cohort.

There’s also a major demographic issue, whereby 1 out of every 6 men will be unable to start a family; I have my doubts as to whether the left-over women from the earlier digression will be doing a lot of child-rearing. China’s already facing a skewed upside down pyramid of population distribution that will get much worse before it gets better. India is at least in a better position to cope with this.

The government is trying to stop this; they’ve banned sex-selective abortion, eased restrictions on one-child in rural areas, and started numerous public campaigns (“girls are just as good as boys”). As a process, it shows just how difficult it is to alter values and incentive structures with planning. Characterize rural farmers as uncouth line-cutting ground-spitting-on boy-loving bumpkins if you want, there are many legitimate reasons for them to want sons and eschew daughters. Until those incentives or the planned birth policies change, expect the trend to continue.