One in four Chinese households is now a single person. Pan Wang, Associate Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies at UNSW Sydney, joins Peter McGraw to talk about the “Are You Dead?” app, one-person hotpot restaurants, date-renting, AI companions, marriage markets, and how TV dating shows reshaped love and marriage in a single generation.
—
Listen to Episode #264 here
Are You Dead? Going Solo in China
Welcome back. My guest is a scholar who studies something that most of us take for granted, which is how people find love and what happens when they don’t. She’s an associate professor of Chinese and Asian studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on gender, love, marriage, and media in China, a country where the tension between tradition and modernity plays out in fascinating ways. She’s the author of Love and Marriage in Globalizing China and Love and Romance in China: From Comrades and Partners to AI Lovers. That title tells you as much about the landscape and how she is at the leading edge of it. Please welcome my guest, Pan Wang.
Thanks very much, Peter.
I’m so happy to talk to you. I was saying that I have looked at a variety of issues around single living in places like Israel, Sweden, Korea, and India. I do write about China a little bit in my book, but I haven’t had a true conversation with a scholar. Especially a scholar of your status. I came to your work via a couple of articles that you wrote for The Conversation, which is a periodical. It’s meant to bridge academia and the real world.
I’ve been writing for the Conversation about the Solo economy and how institutions are adapting, often slowly, to the rise of singles. One of the things that I’ve highlighted is that Asia seems to be adapting faster than the Western world in a lot of ways. I came across two of your articles. We’re going to talk about them in turn. Before we do, I have to ask you. How did you come to study this topic?
The Great Divergence: “Leftover Women” vs. “Bare Branches”
I was drawn to the idea of the singles economy. I watched the Bridget Jones television show. That speaks closely to China’s situation. Where you get a large number of so-called leftover women who are middle-class, well-educated, and financially independent. Those women constitute a large financial force in China and are changing the whole gender norms in China. That’s how I started with analyzing China’s singles economy, with the focus on women. Especially the intimate sector in China’s singles economy. I focused on the date-renting industry initially. I’m still looking into that at the moment. It’s anything relevant in this broader framework that I find fascinating.
Do you consider yourself one of the leftover women?
The term is derogatory. I believe there is a better term for the prevalently used term, leftover. It’s just social changes in China. When I was using we, I was referring to China.
I recognize that leftover women is a pejorative in the same way that spinster in the United States is a pejorative. The phenomena are similar. The spinster goes back to colonial days, but these were women who could earn money and could live on their own. They were not welcomed by society because they were going solo when women weren’t supposed to be going solo. The way we get people to behave is often by labeling them in negative ways. They want to shed that label.
One of the things that is very interesting about this phenomenon in China is that at the same time that some women are opting out of marriage or delaying marriage, focusing on their career and focusing on other things. Also, able to make their way on their own because they’re educated, they have good jobs, etc. There are also millions and millions of single men who want to marry and are having trouble finding a wife. Tell the audience why there are so many single men in China looking for a wife and failing.
The majority of single men are in rural China. The so-called leftover women are in urban China. It’s all due to the one-child policy in China and the strong son preference culture in China, which skewed the gender ratio in subsequent years. It’s because the one-child policy was launched in 1979. It led to the selection of genders when people were having babies.
As a majority, especially in rural China in the countryside, they had a strong son preference. That results in a large number of men compared to fewer women. When these people grew up, the men especially, are struggling to find a partner. Some of them end up not having a partner at all for their whole life in rural China. That is the situation.
You can see how, according to traditional roles and expectations, this is a big problem. You have men in one place who are having trouble finding a wife. You have women in another place who are less interested in finding a husband. As a result, you write that there are a lot of one-person households in China.
Nearly one in four households in China, or 125 million. This is an incredible number, and one that most people don’t think of. When you think of China, you think of a nuclear family or even an extended family. That number could hit upwards of 200 million by 2030. What else is driving that number besides what we talked about?
The trend reflects China’s ongoing demographic shifts, including declining fertility, rapid population aging, falling marriage rates, rising divorce, and a growing number of never-married singles, either voluntarily or not. It’s also linked to the fragmentation of families and kinship networks as large-scale migration from rural areas to cities separates the people from traditional support systems.
At the same time, you see the rise in one-person households goes hand-in-hand with increasing individualization in Chinese society. Particularly in urban areas, as well as greater social isolation and economic insecurity. As a result, some people remain single by choice, while others face structural constraints. Such as the high cost of marriage, housing, and child-rearing, that make marriage less attainable.
The “Empty Nest Youth” and the Anxiety of Disappearing
I get the sense that this is also happening in Korea. It’s very expensive to have a family. Some people are opting out of it. They can’t do it, or they don’t want to be able to do that. You also mentioned that there are these empty nest youths. Young people living alone are working hard. There’s a common anxiety that you describe as disappearing in loneliness. That’s a haunting phrase. What do you mean by that?
Empty nest youths are typically young migrant workers who move from rural areas to cities in search of employment. It’s a process closely tied to China’s rapid urbanization. Many live alone in small rented homes. Often in cramped, substandard conditions. They commonly work in construction factories, delivery services, or hospitality jobs that involve long hours and intense pressure.
For many new migrants, adjusting to the unfamiliar urban environment can be challenging. Their social networks are often limited. They are far from family support. Long-term friends are away from them. They may have little access to stable support systems. This combination of demanding work, precarious living conditions, and social isolation contributes to a sense of loneliness and the anxiety that they could disappear without anyone noticing.
Hearing you talk and reading your work made me sad. A lot of the themes in this show are about empowerment and about people who are choosing to be single or maybe realizing that they are single by chance, but they’re going to reshape their world in a more positive way. A lot of the stories, especially those of empty nest youth, are sad.
These are people who are struggling. They’re working hard and isolated. They’re experiencing, at times, deep loneliness, which is debilitating. What you said is striking is this feeling that they could disappear and no one would know. To be that isolated must be a very difficult place in life to be. This is probably a good segue into this app. You wrote about this app called Are You Dead? That’s the English translation. Is it literally Are You Dead?
Yes, literal translation.
Some young app developers came up with this app. It’s very popular.
It went viral.
It was built for $210. The company was valued at $14 million three days later. It’s now available in 40-plus countries. What does this app do?
It’s a safety app developed by a small number of young people. The app enables users to register their presence by clicking on an on-screen button on their phone to verify they are alive either daily or every two days. If they don’t check in with the set time frame, then the app will send an auto email to their nominated contacts. The app went viral very quickly because of its simple design. Also, the unique name is catchy, with dark humor saying, “Are You Dead?” It’s all of these.
Plus, this app reveals the growing demand among singletons driven by anxiety about dying alone and unnoticed. Some people do have that fear and anxiety over dying alone. They don’t want that. For others, I don’t think they have such a concern. Some people do. Others may not. Other people would pursue singlehood and the singleton as a normal way of living and empowerment rather than being seen as lonely. It’s worth pointing out both sides.
Is it fair to say the leftover women phenomenon is more of a deliberate choice, prioritizing career autonomy. Not wanting to have to do a disproportionate share of domestic work, caregiving work on top of her job, as being more of a proud single? They would be the audience of the show, saying, “Hallelujah,” as we talk about this stuff.
Whereas the elderly people who might be widowed, their kids are out of the house. Maybe their kids have gone to the city or out of rural areas. These empty nest youths on the other side, or some of these men who are having trouble finding a bride. They are being on that other side, single by chance, with the feeling of, “I could just disappear, and no one would notice.”
Solo living is increasingly becoming a deliberate choice among highly educated urban women in China. For many, it reflects a conscious decision to prioritize career development, financial independence, and personal autonomy. In this sense, solo living is gradually being reframed as a modern and individualized lifestyle, particularly in large cities.
More women question or resist the conventional gender division of labor, where men work outside the home while women work inside. They don’t want it anymore. At the same time, we see a strong cultural stigma around singlehood that persists. Never-married women over the age of 27. They have been labeled leftover women. While unmarried men in their 30s or 40s are called leftover men. These labels reflect these enduring social expectations around marriage and family formation.
Social attitudes can also extend to family structures. Children raised by single parents may face prejudice in the marriage market. Divorced individuals with children, particularly women, often encounter difficulties in seeking to remarry. As a result, solo living is becoming more visible and socially accepted in urban contexts. It’s going to coexist with the significant cultural pressures to marry. As you said there’s change, and there’s resistance to change. They coexist.
The Business of Being Alone: Singles’ Day and the Solo Economy
The Chinese like their pejorative. The term bare branches is one of the terms that come up. I have a Chinese colleague who, when I started the Solo Project, told me that single men in China are called single dogs. There’s a lot of formal and informal pressure to conform, to live in this traditional nuclear patriarchal system. It’s happening all over the world. People are wriggling free. When you are able to educate yourself, get a good job, and support yourself, you end up having more choices.
As we’ve talked about on the show time and time again, some people decide to opt out and weather the storm, weather the pressure, and live with the pejoratives. Slowly, one by one, million by million, it starts to become more normalized, especially in the urban areas. I want to talk about the Solo economy for a moment. We’re going to return to dating and marriage in a moment when we talk about your second article. I’ve been focused on thinking about the implications of the rise of singles for institutions.
That could be religious institutions, government, or education. Most striking and most quickly, you’re seeing it with regard to business or commerce. This app, which almost sounds like it was made as a joke, has revealed that there are unique needs that singles have that the current marketplace is not serving. Throughout Asia, you’re seeing commerce change.
The big one is Singles’ Day, spearheaded by Alibaba on November 11th. This is a huge event. It is not just a holiday, but an event like television shows, special products, and so on. There’s a whole bunch of other things that are happening. What are some of the other things that are happening in the world of commerce to serve singles who have been almost completely overlooked?
In China, we know the singles economy is booming. That includes products and services, targeting singles and singletons. Including one-person dining, especially the popular hot pot restaurants and the solo karaoke booths. You can easily find streets in Beijing and Shanghai, commercial areas, micro apartments, small-sized appliances, and solo travel packages. Also, the pet economy is booming. As singles are looking for companions, their fur children or fur companions.
They are their fur babies.
All of these are quite visible. These industries are growing as well. I believe more and more are growing. This app, Are You Dead is also one of those. With this technology and new ideas and innovations, we’ll see more and more emerging very quickly in the coming years.
I told the story on a previous show. I was in Tokyo. Out of curiosity, I did karaoke alone. I rented a room alone.
How was that?
It was fascinating because, arguably, I am the most pro single person you’re going to find. I’ve been reading and writing about the rise of products and services for singles. I even thought there was something a little bit peculiar about solo karaoke. I even thought it was a little bit sad, but once I did it, I understood it. Forgive the digression, Pan. One is, you go when you want to go. You don’t have to coordinate.
You can sing with the greatest gusto and excitement that you can. You don’t feel embarrassed. You can make a fool of yourself and not feel like a fool. It’s good practice. If you’re into karaoke, you can practice your favorite song. For example, I practice a song three times in a row. If you and I were at a karaoke booth, you probably would stick a fork in me after number two. “You’re done, Peter.”
It gives you space and flexibility. You can do that anytime. You can do that at night or early morning, whichever you prefer. Sometimes, people do need that space, whether they’re single or not. This is an individual space that people can enjoy in public.
The Marriage Market: Parents as Full-Time Matchmakers
I’ve said this time and time again. The United States is far behind China, Korea, and Japan with regard to these products and services. It’s a matter of time before they catch on because it’s such a big demographic shift. Speaking of shifts, let’s shift to talking about Chinese culture around love, dating, and marriage. Also, some of the products and services associated with that. I’ll let you start, and then I want to make sure we talk about marriage markets. That’s a big question. This is the topic of your second article that I read. It’s called How TV Dating Shows Helped Change Love and Marriage in China Forever. It’s a bold headline. I love it.
Thank you for reading this. It was the first dating show in China that aired in 1988. It was groundbreaking because it moved dating from the private sphere into the public realm and turned what had traditionally been a personal matter into something openly discussed and displayed for public consumption. At that time, courtship in China was still generally discreet, so televising this matchmaking process was a significant departure from social norms.
Also, by bringing dating onto television, the program opened a new space. Intimate relationships could be mediated through mass media. In doing so, it laid the foundation for the development of later dating shows like If You Are the One or other very popular shows in China, and many other genres that we’re seeing.
You said moving it from the discreet private. These were often arrangements that were happening with families, so parents were heavily involved. Other family members are choosing to matchmake between two people, a man and a woman. The famous thing that I came across is these marriage markets that get set up in parks. You’re basically advertising your child to potential. Is it to other parents or to the actual brides and grooms themselves?
Those are the marriage matchmaking corners that are held in the city parks in different cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai. There are the fourth, first, second, and third-tier cities. You can all see them because they are proliferating.
They are flourishing.
Parents are exchanging the profiles of their adult children. They also display the personal acts of their adult children in the park with the aim of finding a partner for their children. Some of them are there by themselves without telling their children. Others go against the decision of their children, but others reached an agreement with their children before coming. I visit those parks. These parents work extremely hard, not only to communicate with each other, busy exchanging cards and also orally, but also to be there every day. Some of them, for years or for decades.
One parent that I met went there for ten-plus years trying to find a partner for their adult child, and it’s still unsuccessful. Honestly, the success rate through parental matchmaking in the parks is not that high. Parents still want to find the one because they are worried so much about the lives of their children. They invested in their children so much, both financially and emotionally. Especially for the only child in their families. It’s almost like a full-time job for those parents staying in the parks.
From Public Service to Prime Time: The Evolution of TV Dating
It’s heartbreaking to hear this in this way. This is obviously a newer phenomenon in response to the fragmenting dating marketplace and the very real demographic challenges that you’ve been documenting. With the nature of these shows, how would you describe one of these shows? In the United States and Europe, we’re familiar with the Bachelor or the Bachelorette. There is one appealing person, and then several people are competing for their attention. People get voted off or rejected until you winnow it down to two people. Is that the nature of these shows, or do they have a different flavor?
It’s completely different from the Bachelor or the Bachelorette in the US because you never see someone who has an open relationship in China. You’re going to find the one. It’s not multiple dating at the same time. That doesn’t work for Chinese culture. In China, dating shows are initially designed to serve the people. They are reflecting this public service orientation because the government and also the society, the people, see that looking for a partner is something one must have. Therefore, it’s their duty also to take care of that for the younger generation.
That’s because of this initial motivation from the show, especially given China’s large number of bachelors. That also made a high demand in the market. Over time, the nature of the shows shifted toward entertainment as commercial television expanded rapidly in China. As competition for audiences intensified, dating programs became more market-driven.
In turn, these shows began to reshape public perceptions of love and marriage by turning matchmaking and dating into a highly visible televised form of entertainment in which various actors, from broadcasters to participants and advertisers, could all benefit either financially or in terms of reputation or others.
If you look back in the 1990s, people were already enjoying greater freedom in love and marriage. Since the 1980s, the breakdown of mutual affection, ganjing, has been recognized as a legitimate ground for divorce. That signaled a shift toward greater personal choice in intimate relationships. At the same time, however, dating itself was generally private and strongly oriented toward marriage. By contrast, what we see is different. Courtship has become more public and collective and increasingly commercialized. Everything else that you also see in the big changes that have happened is reflected in these shows.
What you’re describing happened in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. As dating moved into the public sphere, there was courtship. Men and women chose their partners. The rise of the love marriage began there. As we all know, there are still places in the world where arranged marriages are the norm. Very few places are moving from love marriages to arranged marriages or moving from arranged marriages to love marriages.
What’s happening in China has been reflected time and time again. What you observe with these shows is very interesting. The shows are, at the same time, capturing the change in culture. People are dating. They’re courting. It’s also accelerating that because it’s exposing people to these ideas and new ways to go about finding love.
Many viewers then become participants on these shows. They’re not only there for looking for a partner, but for something else as well. It could be for fun and for commercial purposes. Everything else is intertwined when these people are part of this show and part of the singles economy.
You can go on YouTube and find clips of these shows that are out there. They are much different than the Bachelor, to your point. They are also highly entertaining. They’ve gone from, “How do we find brides for these rural men?” Television Red Bride in ‘88, to these over-the-top. It’s an extension of Alibaba Singles Day and so on. Again, there are a lot of fireworks, laughs, and wow moments that happen with these.
It is transforming completely. What’s transforming not only includes how the show is conducted and how the genre is involved, but also personal and social relationships. Earlier, we had the Red Bride show. A person is being interviewed on the show by a journalist to be questioned and answered. Later, we have dating shows like If You Are the One.
They have either 24 girls or 24 boys being chosen by one man, with mentors sitting aside and giving comments and suggestions to these participants. Also, these participants get opportunities to showcase their talents on stage. On the surface, we could see that the genre or the styles are changing. Things have become more real.
Reality shows, especially reality dating shows and talk shows, are all mixed with different genres. Essentially, we could see that what’s changing is the personal and social relationships. We could say dating is still a private thing, but dating could be fun. One does not have to date for the purpose of marrying, but to date to be on the show for other purposes and to showcase their talents.
It may be to get famous.
All these social personal relationships are changing. These are shaping people’s understanding of love and marriage. Especially, they are heavily shaped by the advice and suggestions given by the love mentors who were invited by the television hosts. This is a conversation and discussion about dating. Rather than simply for someone to go in there and find a partner.
As you describe these different shows, over time, it went from a show about a sincere show to try to get people partnered up to a show that’s designed to sell advertisements. It’s a show that’s designed to be entertaining first and then connecting second in that way. Listening to you talk and reading your work reveals the complexity of love, romance, dating, and marriage in China because it’s not a simple story. People have different goals. They have different opportunities.
There are very real sadness and loneliness. There’s real excitement and wonder around, as I like to say, wriggling free of tradition. There was a moment in If You Are the One. I want to ask you if you think this was a little bit of a turning point, or if it just captured the cultural winds. The woman said that she would rather weep in a BMW than laugh on a bike. It was something like that.
That’s right.
Relationship Work: Exploring the Gray Area of Date-Renting
What was going on there? That sounds like the empowerment side of this formula, but I’m curious.
It was a striking moment that reflected China’s growing materialism under accelerated marketization and commercialization. This remark mirrored the mentality of some people who prioritize financial security and material comfort in marriage rather than love alone. The commercialization of love and marriage occurs when love and emotions are capitalized on and transformed into forms of business or exchange.
This is evident in the proliferation of love services like dating shows or digital dating platforms, love mentoring services, and date renting services. Essentially, it’s the point at which love and marriage are packaged and marketed as a form of entertainment or commercial services. For If You’re the One, with what the woman said, I don’t see that as a turning point. It’s just a marker of reflection of China’s growing materialism at that particular juncture.
It’s symbolic rather than anything else. You mentioned date renting. I’ve heard that there’s this service where unmarried men, these bare branches, bring a fake partner home for the Lunar New Year to make their parents happy. Is that what you’re referring to when you say date renting, or are there other forms of it?
This is the major form of that. Date renting began as a niche practice. It was often used by single people, particularly men, at the beginning to bring a temporary partner home during the Lunar New Year period to ease their family and parents’ pressure. It has since expanded into a broader commercial sphere. It’s now part of what could be described as China’s growing companion economy.
You see that forms of intimacy, emotional support, and social companionship are increasingly commodified. This trend is also linked closely to China’s booming platform economy. These digital platforms enable individuals to act simultaneously as service providers and consumers and facilitate transactions for companionship and social outings or emotional support.
As single-person households continue to rise in traditional family structures involved, I see these kinds of services are likely to expand further. There are things like dating and date renting, or things similar to date renting or other kinds of companionship. All of these reflect both market adaptation and the changing social needs of urban residents.
This is different than what you would traditionally describe as sex work. This is someone who might be a digital girlfriend or someone you talk to. There’s some research that came out of Australia that looked at sex workers. They found that about half the men hiring sex workers were looking for a girlfriend experience. It wasn’t just about novelty and sex. It was about emotional support, about someone to talk to, someone to listen to, and so on.
What you’re describing are these other forms of paying for a service. The service is someone to keep you company, to listen to you, to support you emotionally, and so on. As you mentioned, there’s so much pressure and concern from Mom and Dad. You’re getting a lot of pressure like, “How are things going? Have you met anyone?” They’re going to dating markets and trying to find you someone. You rent a girlfriend for a week or weekend to make them feel better.
It is to be a filial son, especially to fulfill China’s cultural expectations. This has evolved earlier. That’s for looking for someone to meet parents during the Lunar New Year. That shifted to all kinds of services. You can hire somebody to watch a film with you. You can hire somebody to talk to you. You can hire somebody to simply wake you up in the morning or give you a massage. I don’t think that excludes the service of sex, but this is another topic that could be potentially a gray area in the name of date renting. There are several gray areas embedded in this service, which perhaps need to be further standardized by the officials.
Digital Companions: The Double-Edged Sword of AI Chatbots
What we’ve seen is an expansion or an adjacent service of sex work. It’s almost like relationship work. For some of these situations, they are platonic. There’s no actual intimacy in that way. For others, there probably is, to your point. You also mentioned, with the rapid rise of AI, the notion of AI-powered chatbots, so you could talk to AI about things. There’s chatter about robots coming and whether we will find humanoid dolls that serve some of these purposes.
China’s demographic shift is not only a question of numbers. It’s also about the emotional consequences that accompany it. There are feelings of insecurity or loneliness, and the stigma surrounding singlehood. Technologies such as AI chatbots or humanoid companions are emerging partly in response to these social changes. They are designed to ease anxiety and provide emotional support, particularly for individuals who live alone. In that sense, they function as a form of solution to the unmet social and emotional needs.
However, problems may arise when reliance on these digital companions begins to replace rather than supplement human relationships. If individuals develop strong emotional attachments to the machines they have and then withdraw. They could easily withdraw from forming meaningful connections with other people. We see risks reinforcing isolation rather than alleviating it. It’s a double-edged sword.
I know people have strong opinions about these things. They worry about the emergence of these chatbots and what they might do to real social connections. It’s easy to be worried about them, but at the same time, what about that very lonely person who is disconnected and searching for someone to talk to? One of the nice things about these chatbots is that they’re always available. They are going to be supportive. They’re not going to be abusive. It’s part of their programming. They can help assuage someone who’s in crisis or who’s lonely and struggling.
That’s very useful to a large number of people, regardless of their background, age, gender, or situation. I agree. It’s useful and necessary to some people, but it’s a double-edged sword. They can personalize their service as well. That’s another beauty of this AI-assisted companionship. You can reset your companion as a girl or as a boy, as whatever age or whatever ethnicity, for the chatbot, for example.
Those concerns are real because real human relations are messy. You can’t program a friend, a family member, a lover, a partner, or a co-worker. You can’t program them to behave exactly as you want them to. You have to negotiate your experiences with these people. That often creates growth and learning.
State Control and the Dual Mandate of Chinese Media
I don’t want my friends to always agree with me. I want them to tell me I’m wrong. Double-edged sword is the right way to frame the emergence of this new technology. This is China. If you could talk about shifts in China, you have to take into account the government. With these television shows, the government stepped in at some point. What did they say?
There’s a government policy regulating how dating shows should run. There’s a guideline for vulgar content, unhealthy content, or anything that is against the mainstream. For example, content on sissy boys or feminized boys should be deleted. They should be censored. State-owned media in China have long operated with dual roles in China. On the one hand, it serves as the party’s mouthpiece. It promotes official ideology and values. That’s why they are filtering out this unacceptable content from their perspective to ensure everything goes within the party line.
On the other hand, it is expected to generate revenue as well and to remain commercially viable. This dual mandate has existed since China’s media reform in the early 1980s. Dating shows are a good example. It is how this tension plays out because dating shows are fundamentally entertainment programs. They are often framed as edutainment, which is education and entertainment.
They are expected to guide audiences toward values aligned with mainstream ideology and to promote what’s commonly called positive energy or Zhèng néngliàng in Chinese. At the same time, these programs must compete in a highly commercialized media market to survive, as most no longer receive direct government subsidies. Earlier, they did, but not anymore. When commercial incentives and ideological expectations diverge, then regulatory intervention often follows. Shows may be required to adjust their content or format accordingly.
Destigmatizing Singlehood: The Global Future of Solo Research
Pan, I have to say that as a fellow academic, I need to compliment you on your choice of research topics. One of the things that I look for in a good research topic is whether it is important. Is it complex? Aren’t enough people studying it? That, in some ways, makes studying it easier and harder simultaneously. Listening to you and reading your work, your work checks each of those boxes.
You’re talking about very important things, such as major demographic shifts and major cultural shifts. You’re talking about love and heartbreak. You’re talking about family dynamics that are incredibly important. I’m hearing about someone who might spend a decade trying to get their child married. That sits heavy on me here. This is a complex topic. There are many factors, as we said, demographic and cultural. Some of them are good. Some of them are not so good.
We are seeing a rise in single studies at universities. We’re seeing journalists starting to write about these things. We’re seeing shows like this one and others pop up where regular everyday people are talking about these topics. You have your hands full. You’re juggling all these elements. I’m curious. What is it that you’re working on now? What are you working on next? Is this going to continue to be a topic of interest for you?
For my next step, I would like to look closer into China’s singles economy because I have only looked at the intimate sector of China’s broad singles economy. There are so many to delve into. It’s a reservoir. It is step by step. It is talking to people and doing some surveys. Hopefully, also interviews and going to the field if possible. It is those who run the singles business and also clients who are enjoying or having the services. It’s quite a broad area worth exploring further. If I have an opportunity, I will keep doing so.
Please keep in touch as that work evolves because I’m very keen to understand this topic. It’s happening globally in some places more than others.
There are lots of similarities as well. Maybe what Japan has been doing earlier on is what China is doing now. China is following the steps of Japan. There are striking similarities, but there would be differences as well, especially when it comes to cultural norms. That would be quite interesting. It’s definitely worth talking about. Keep talking. Keep the conversation going about singles, their lives, singles economy, solo economy, solo living, etc. Universally, singles are stigmatized. The more we talk about that, the real picture is shown to people, so they have a better understanding and will not hold prejudiced views against single people.
Pam, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your work. I enjoyed getting to know you and learning more about singlehood in China.
Thanks very much, Peter. I also look forward to tuning in to your show and reading more of your work as well.
You’re very kind. Cheers.
Cheers.
Important Links
- Pan Wang
- Love and Marriage in Globalizing China
- Love and Romance in China: From Comrades and Partners to AI Lovers
- The Conversation
- How TV Dating Shows Helped Change Love and Marriage in China Forever
- Are You Dead? China’s Viral App Reveals a Complex Reality of Solo Living and Changing Social Ties
About Pan Wang
Pan Wang is Associate Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Her research focuses on gender, love, marriage, and media in China. She is the author of Love and Marriage in Globalizing China (Routledge, 2015) and Love and Romance in China: From Comrades and Partners to AI Lovers (Bloomsbury, 2025).
Her recent publications examine intimate and familial relationships in China, including “Parental Marriage-Matchmaking Practices: Marketisation, Internationalisation, and Digitalisation” (Routledge, 2025), “Love during the Cultural Revolution: Evidence from a Couple’s Private Letters, 1968–1977” (The History of the Family, 2022), and “Going Solo: An Analysis of China’s ‘Single Economy’ through the Date-Renting Industry” (Asian Studies Review, 2021).
She has taught across a wide range of areas and disciplines, including traditional Chinese culture and society, China in world history, Chinese media, Australia’s Asian context, gender in China, and Asia in global context.
Pan has held leadership roles in Chinese Studies and education within her school. She has served as guest editor for Genealogy and Social Sciences, and as Book Review Editor for Asian Studies Review.