When Jane Austen wrote “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” it was the time of the landed gentry in the days of the Regency era. In China today, though, Austen’s words resonate for many. For China in 2015 is home to more than a few single men in possession of a good fortune, but not so many women. At least not in the rural areas.
My hometown is village of 5,000 in Hebei province. During a recent visit, I took the opportunity to catch up with my old elementary school teachers. The textbooks, teacher salaries, and school facilities had all changed, but what astonished me was the number of pupils. When I was in school, there were two parallel classes in each grade with at least 30 to 50 pupils in each class. And there were six grades in total. Now, there is but one class for each grade, with at most 30 pupils, only five or six of whom are girls.
As I chatted with my old teachers, they confirmed what was readily apparent: There are fewer pupils, fewer of whom are girls. According to my teachers, this situation was rather common, at least outside the city.
What will that mean a couple of decades from now? Perhaps the story of my cousin can offer some insight. He was born in 1991, at a time when the one child policy was arguably at is strictest. As the third child of his family (he has two older sisters), my uncle paid a handsome fine to keep him, while my aunt played several games of hide and seek with officials from the local family planning office. My cousin recently became engaged, to a great deal of relief. It did not occur to me how lucky he felt until my uncle told me there were at least 30 young men in my village who are in their twenties and are looking for a marriage partner. Thanks to China’s economic development, these young men have much to offer, but the search is difficult.
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