City’s ‘old maids’ feeling lonelier than others

Single women in Shanghai are feeling lonelier as "old maids" compared to their counterparts in other Chinese cities, suggests a new survey released Tuesday by a popular online matchmaking agency.

The city's single ladies scored an average of 152 points on an index measuring loneliness, higher than other females in 30 other places in the country, said the report by jiayuan.com, which was based on data last month from 85,498 members, roughly half of whom are female, and 1,947 of the latter living in Shanghai.

Shanghai women are also the fifth-most likely to consider themselves shengnü or "leftover women," a term unmarried ladies buy into as early as 26 - a year earlier than in 2010, when they drew the conclusion at the age of 27, said the report.

"With a higher education and economic status, women are more independent, spiritually and financially," said Gong Haiyan, chief executive officer of jiayuan.com. "Many want true love, and if they can't find it, they'd rather be 'leftover.'"

"But even though half of the 'leftover' women tell us they're worried about finding the right man, they don't take action in searching for him," she said.

According to the survey, 73 percent of single women blamed few chances to meet men for their "leftover" status, which was most perceived as a derogatory term by female Shanghai singles.

Sixty-two percent of single men, however, said that women are single longer due to the higher standards they set for a potential spouse.

After Shanghai ladies, single women in Sichuan and Beijing, meanwhile, feel the next lonely, said the survey.

Women in Tibet as well as those from Qinghai and Shanxi provinces, however, were not weighed down by a companionless feeling, according to the index used for the report, which showed their scores below the 100-point threshold.