Where Are All the Single Men? China

Single ladies of the world, are you tired with not finding any guys worth dating? Or do you think all the best men are taken? If either of those is the case, you may want to consult a travel agent and make your way to China, because by 2020, there will be more than 24 million men of marrying age to choose from.

The story on Yahoo (from a Global Times article) is based on findings from a study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a government-backed group that found the male-female imbalance among newborns as "the most serious demographic problem for the country's population of 1.3 billion." According to the study, a major factor was gender-selective abortions, due to a cultural preference for boys over girls, but it also noted reasons for the imbalance were "complex."

The article states that authorities put the normal male to female ratios in the country at 103-107 males for every 100 females. As recently as 2005, though, data put that number at 119 boys for every 100 girls, and the CASS study said that some areas had ratios as high as 130 males for every 100 females.

This disparity could force men to marry later in life than they usually would or even risk breaking the family line by remaining single. The study is apparently urging the government to remove the "one-child" policy that China has and look into "cross-country marriages."

Photo courtesy of \!/_PeacePlusOne, via Flickr