China offers £110 rewards for 'matchmakers' to match single men with their friends as country faces 'single crisis'

CHINA is offering £110 rewards for 'matchmakers' who connect single men with their friends to combat the country's 'single crisis'.

Local governments across the country have promised other rewards as an incentive to help single men aged 30 and over find wives in rural villages.

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China The country currently has about 30 million unmarried men, and some policymakers worry that the imbalance will affect stability and development in rural areas.

Stimulus programs were expected to start this month from Guangdong province in the south to Shaanxi in the northwest, Chinese news site The Paper reported on Saturday.

The report also adds that more will begin in February, the report said South China Morning Mail.

The village council of Xiangjiazhuang in Shaanxi province announced it would give 1,000 CNY (£110.88) to those who introduce an unmarried man to a woman he eventually gets married from January 1.

According to the report, the village is home to approximately 270 households and more than 40 unmarried men between the ages of 25 and 40.

But it's a worrying trend that's taking over most of the country, where an estimated 30 million men are without wives.

According to the 2020 Chinese census, the country has 722 million men and 690 million women.

Despite China dropping its one-child policy in 2015, gender inequality is most prominent among those born in that 35-year period.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the gender ratio in rural areas in 2021 was about 108 men for every 100 women.

The deep-rooted preference of parents for boys over girls and women going to work in the cities is believed to be the cause of this.

But Yi Fuxian, a senior scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies Chinese demography, argues that financial intensives will not solve the current problems.

“Simple financial incentives cannot possibly solve the bachelor crisis in rural China,” Yi said.

“Today's high youth unemployment also contributes to the low marriage rate.

“Young men can't afford to support their families, so of course they can't afford to get married.

“With local governments in China in a debt crisis, it is difficult for authorities to introduce higher incentives to promote fertility, let alone marriage.”

But plans to combat the ongoing dilemma date back to October 2021, when a Chinese Communist Party writer proposed a four-pronged solution to “revitalize” the countryside.

Jiang Wenlai of party-affiliated news site Red Net called it an “operation to warm the beds of older men.”

It suggested a blind-date matchmaking service, simplified paperwork for starting families in villages, more well-paid employment in rural areas and propaganda campaigns promoting “marriage and childbearing”.

Unfortunately for Jiang, Chinese social media users promptly ridiculed the “surgery.”

In 2023, China reported a population decline for the second consecutive year, along with a record-low birth rate.

According to NBS figures earlier this month, the country's mainland population fell by 2.08 million, from 1.4097 billion to 1.4118 billion.

A migrant worker in her late 20s from central China told SCMP that the problem lies with young women from rural areas who are “not interested in getting married.”

Yang Zi, who works at a hair salon in Guangzhou, said: “I want to live in a rich and developed area.

“A young man in the country cannot provide the lifestyle I want.”

According to a 2021 Communist Youth League survey of 2,905 unmarried urban youth aged 18 to 26, statistics support Yang's claims.

Only 43.9 percent of women said they did not want to get married or were unsure about marriage, while only 24.6 percent of men responded similarly.

The report adds that China Generation Z has the largest gender imbalance of any age group.

With 18.27 million more men than women, it's no surprise that there are so many without a female partner to marry.

But Chinese officials are now sweating over the impact this “demographic time bomb” could have on the economy, writing The guard.

As the number of working taxpayers shrinks, the rising costs of elder care and financial support are at risk of not being covered.

As a result, the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences has predicted that the pension system will run out of money within ten years.

It is feared that the number of people aged 60 and over will increase from around 280 million to 400 million by 2035.

Elsewhere, the 'tallest woman in the world' has died under unusual circumstances after finding fame as a Chinese TikTok star.

Xiao Mo, 23, from Shaoyang, southwestern Hunan province, was dubbed 'The Giant' because of her 2.5 meter height.

And at least nine people died – and another 47 buried alive – after a massive landslide hit a mountain village in China.

The tragedy occurred Monday in Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province, forcing the evacuation of 200 people amid freezing temperatures.