Social Mobility and Single Women’s Marriage Dilemma in Urban China

In contemporary China, social mobility creates an ethical conundrum for single women, who wish to marry without compromising their modern ambitions and filial intentions. Both women and men in China’s largest cities have been postponing marriage in recent decades, increasing the percentage of the never-married population. Failure to marry at the proper time and in the right way violates cultural standards for moral personhood and thus is negatively sanctioned by society. Moreover, women bear greater pressure to marry, and in a timely fashion, than do men. Their marriage prospects decrease as their age and status increase; highly educated single women especially have been stigmatized as “leftover” or unmarriageable. Simultaneously, their educational and professional achievements correspond to refined aspirations for their future, along with resources to delay marriage until they meet a soulmate who fulfills their expectations. Interviews with highly educated single women in Shanghai demonstrate how they contended with the gender contradictions of social mobility. Remaining single by chance or by choice incited societal scrutiny, parental pressure, and personal anguish, but also prompted critical reflection on unequal marriage and gender norms, and sparked shifts in subjectivity. Paradoxically, social mobility reduced single women’s marital prospects yet accorded them the means to envision and forge alternative life paths that challenge patriarchal gender prescriptions.