China's Leftover Women

The term "sheng nu" ("leftover women") has been coined in China to describe the increasing number of women, especially intelligent professional women aged thirty and over who have not married. This book explores this phenomenon, demonstrating that such women are often deliberately choosing careers, single lives and/or non-traditional relationships over traditional marriage. The book explains the reasons for these choices, discusses the consequences for China’s population, already distorted by the single child policy, and compares the situation in China with that in other countries. The book also relates the problem to theories of feminism, individualisation, reflexivity and agency.