Cultural Expectations, Market Mismatch and Individual Choices: -- Making of “Shengnü” in Shanghai

“Shengnü” is a new social and culture phenomenon in China, especially urban China. Literally meaning “leftover woman”, it is a snazzy and demeaning word to describe unmarried women at age 30 and above. How does China, a country that was characteristic for universal female marriage and known to have a huge army of surplus-man, produce a group of un-marriageable women? This paper argues that the conflict of two competing cultural expectations of hypergamy -- female age and status hypergamy -- creates a mismatch that puts highly educated women at a disadvantage position in the marriage market. Using the 2005 mini-census, we examine the emergence of “Shengnü” phenomenon in Shanghai over the last two decades. We decompose the observed decline in marriage rates to study the contribution of marriage market mismatch, and compare with the findings from the United States and Japan. We further examine individual’s coping strategy facing the market squeeze.