Decoding Chinese Millennials: The Culture of Singles in the Post-Mao Era

ABSTRACT

Though China has long served as a prototypical collectivist culture, the growing number of individual and unattached adult singles is gaining currency in the country. While previous studies of Chinese singles are typically geared toward the country’s so-called “leftover women”, and treat singledom as pejorative or problematic, this study focuses on the emerging demographic of young urban singles and their distinctive social role in reform-era China. Based on semi-structured interviews with 18 singletons from Guangdong Province who are entering the workforce, this study provides an exploratory overview of this new generation of young Chinese singles. The interviews reveal how this emergent single culture is prompting changes in individual autonomy, interpersonal attachment, marriage, gender norms, and family dynamics in contemporary China.

KEYWORDS:

• Young singlehood
• one-child era
• millennials
• stigmatization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. China’s ascension to the WTO had not only symbolic importance, but played a direct role in transforming gender identities; see the special issue of Feminist Economics on Gender, China, and the World Trade Organization (Berik et al., 2004).

2. This definition stems from the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), a mass organization for women’s rights in China.

3. For one exception see, A. Gaetano (2010).

4. The largest range is from 22 to 88. See, Zajicek and Koski (2003).

5. Guangdong Province is home to the city of Guangzhou (formerly Canton) which was an important site of Western trade from the 17th to 19th centuries, during the Qing era. Macau was founded by Portuguese explorers in 1557 as a trading port, and was administered by Portugal until it was handed over to China in 1999, and designated a Special Administrative Region of the PRC under Deng’s “one country, two systems” regime.

6. In 1980, at the start of the reform era, the Guangdong Province coastal cities of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou were designated as China’s first three Special Economic Zones in which to test new market policies.

7. This was largely due to the severe situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in China (which itself has probably exacerbated single culture).

8. Taobao: One of the largest e-commerce platforms in China.