If you're having trouble finding a date on Momo or Tinder these days, there may be a simple reason why fewer people are swiping right on your profile. It turns out that Beijing's status as the singles' capital of China has waned as new regulations and trends encourage single men and women to live elsewhere.
A recent survey conducted by dating website MarryU showed that Beijing ranked eighth out of a list of Chinese cities with the highest number of single Chinese adults in their 20s. The majority of the survey's 8,128 respondents called Guangzhou their home, while Shanghai was named the fourth most popular home for Chinese singles.
Meanwhile, statistics released by the Bureau of Civil Administration at the end of last year ranked Beijing as China's ninth most popular city for unmarried adults, trailing far behind its first-place neighbor, Tianjin.
Beijing's popularity with single adults has sharply declined since the summer of 2015 when the 80 million unmarried members of dating website Zhenai named Beijing as their home which, additionally, is also the Chinese city where single adults earn the highest average monthly salary.
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The specific reason behind the massive exodus remains unclear, but it's worth nothing that Beijing recently implemented a city-wide restriction that limits single adult residents to owning just one house, a restriction that hasn't been implement in other parts of China. Other reports have shown Beijing locals to have the highest monthly salary expectations of prospective marriage partners, topping out at 15,000 yuan (USD 2,172).
Meanwhile, China's gender imbalance will mean the country will have 30 million more men than women by the year 2030.
The disappearance of unmarried Beijing adults comes at a time when China is bracing itself for the emergence of the so-called "fourth wave" of single Chinese adults. This growing demographic is led by China's "leftover women," unmarried Chinese women who have foregone a husband by achieving financial independence for themselves.
Even though they may not appear in Beijing, the numbers of unmarried Chinese in China are growing. Single people living alone rose to 15 percent of the population in 2013 as compared to 6 percent in 1990.
Out of a total 200 million Chinese singles, 20 million are between the ages of 20-39 in China who mostly live in first and second-tiered cities on the east coast.
Despite the decline of unmarried adults in Beijing (who have presumably moved into happy marriages, or at least happier locales), recent reports say Beijing is a prime example of the sad "empty nest" phenomenon affecting unmarried adults throughout China.
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According to CNR, single adults who have moved to the capital for work have wretched, lonely lives. As seen in photographs of people interviewed in the report (shown throughout this article), single Beijingers have the misery of eating alone, are forced to go to the hospital without accompaniment, and turn on their televisions for company.
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Twitter: @Sinopath
Images: CNR