China will have a surplus of bachelors — 30 million — by the year 2020, and Xie Zuoshi, an economics professor at Zhejing University of Finance and Economics, has presented some solutions to this growing problem.
Known as guanggun (bare branches), the Chinese single male population can be attributed to a country of gender imbalance, with birth control policies allowing only one child and males preferred, according to the New York Times' Women in the World.
Two years ago, China relaxed the decades-old, one-child policy, allowing couples to have a second baby, but only if both parents were themselves an only child. Despite the attempt to correct the gender imbalance, it won't make an impact on the current situation, so the National Post asked, who can the guanggun marry?
"With so many guanggun, women are in short supply and their value increases," wrote Zuoshi, according to the New York Times' Sinosphere. "But that doesn't mean the market can't be adjusted. The guanggun problem is actually a problem of income. High-income men can find a woman because they can pay a higher price. What about low-income men? One solution is to have several take a wife together."
"Behind the imbalanced sex ratio of 30 million bachelors lie 30 million baby girls who died due to sex discrimination," said Zheng Churan, a woman's rights activist. "But somehow everyone's still crying that some men can't find wives."
