Love,Life,and "Leftover Ladies"in Urban China Mediocrity is the virtue of women. Admonitions for Women(80 CE),by BAN Zhao(45-116 CE,China) 1.Introduction After more than three decades of economic reform,marriage remains universal and early in China (Ji and Yeung,2014;Jones and Gubhaju,2009).Yet,as with the other spheres of modern Chinese life,the marriage market has been evolving as part of the rapid,and, sometimes radical,socioeconomic transitions.Among the changes,the most visible features include two seemingly paradoxical phenomena:While the urban population of every province of the country reports higher-than-one sex ratio of unmarried men over unmarried women,urban women in their late 20s or 30s show decreasing rates of marriage formation. The 2010 Census suggests that three in ten urban women aged 25-29,long the most common age for urban women's first marriage in the Chinese tradition,had never been married, although there were 1.19 million more men than women in cities,contradicting the positive impact of sex ratio on the likelihood of women's marriage widely found in other countries (e.g.,U.S.in Angrist,2002 and Abramitzky et al.,2011). Researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds have documented the different situations Chinese men and women may face in the future.On the one hand,men of lower social status and less education will confront a deteriorating marital squeeze,with the rate of male bachelorhood predicted to peak around 2050(Guilmoto,2012;Huang,2014;Jiang, 2014);on the other,urban women,typically the well-educated,have to weigh the chance of marriage formation against their personal development in the public sphere (Ji,2015;Tian, 2013:Yu and Xie,2015). 22 Love, Life, and “Leftover Ladies” in Urban China Mediocrity is the virtue of women. Admonitions for Women (80 CE), by BAN Zhao (45-116 CE, China) 1. Introduction After more than three decades of economic reform, marriage remains universal and early in China (Ji and Yeung, 2014; Jones and Gubhaju, 2009). Yet, as with the other spheres of modern Chinese life, the marriage market has been evolving as part of the rapid, and, sometimes radical, socioeconomic transitions. Among the changes, the most visible features include two seemingly paradoxical phenomena: While the urban population of every province of the country reports higher-than-one sex ratio of unmarried men over unmarried women, urban women in their late 20s or 30s show decreasing rates of marriage formation. The 2010 Census suggests that three in ten urban women aged 25-29, long the most common age for urban women’s first marriage in the Chinese tradition, had never been married, although there were 1.19 million more men than women in cities, contradicting the positive impact of sex ratio on the likelihood of women’s marriage widely found in other countries (e.g., U.S. in Angrist, 2002 and Abramitzky et al., 2011). Researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds have documented the different situations Chinese men and women may face in the future. On the one hand, men of lower social status and less education will confront a deteriorating marital squeeze, with the rate of male bachelorhood predicted to peak around 2050 (Guilmoto, 2012; Huang, 2014; Jiang, 2014); on the other, urban women, typically the well-educated, have to weigh the chance of marriage formation against their personal development in the public sphere (Ji, 2015; Tian, 2013; Yu and Xie, 2015)