China’s wealthy men are going all out to find the woman of their dreams, paying up to $44,000 to join an exclusive online dating site, CNN reports:
The Web site states in Chinese the qualifications for joining: a personal or family wealth of at least 2 million yuan ($292,000); a background that is extremely superior, wealthy and aristocratic; very good personal qualities or young, talented and beautiful.
The article goes on to discuss the social forces at work behind the phenomenon:
Behind Golden Bachelor’s extravagance is a telling trend of what the future of finding love in China could look like. In a society where 24 million Chinese men will find themselves lacking wives by 2020 because of the country’s gender imbalance, according to a recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, it could get highly competitive.
“Men at the bottom of the social hierarchy are going to have very few chances to meet women,” said James Farrer, author of “Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai.”
“This is going to be very apparent in the future as poor men with few economic resources just won’t find women,” Farrer said. “Women won’t benefit from this imbalance either. These are the women who are highly educated and have high career ambitions. They will be competing for men at the top of the social hierarchy.”
Rapid urbanization is eroding more traditional ways of finding partners through relatives and friends and is pressing young people to seek out new avenues for romance. In a society that is increasingly living life on the Internet, online services are poised to capitalize on the looming scarcity of love matches.
