Dateline: Sept 18

On Tuesday, Dateline reports on the challenges of finding a partner in China today where the older, more educated and higher earning a woman is, the more difficulty she has finding a husband, even in a country of 200 million singles.

As China urbanises, a growing number of women are focusing on their careers with many finding themselves successful but single in their thirties, and beyond. The changing priorities of these women are clashing with age-old marriage traditions that demand women marry at 25.

“People are likely to see me as a strong woman and this has a negative impression and it affects my pursuit for love,” Deng Feng, a 42 year old millionaire who made her fortune from China’s economic boom, tells Dateline’s Adrian Brown.

Deng Feng is one of many wealthy and successful women over 30 finding new ways to help them find love, including exclusive matchmaking parties where successful women are brought together with potential partners. Online dating has also become a big business in China with one service even listed on the NASDAQ stock market.

However, despite the fact that China’s skewed gender imbalance means there are currently 118 men for every 100 women, many men remain picky, preferring to pursue women younger than themselves.

“In Chinese tradition men should be the dominant one. So, a woman who is strong at work may be strong at home too, and so the man will feel very uncomfortable,” Ms Deng continues.

Marriage in China is a serious and sensitive issue, particularly for many parents eager for their adult children to marry. Brown visits one of Beijing’s ‘marriage markets’ – a park where desperate parents take things into their own hands, coming here each week to post details about their unmarried children in hope they will find a match.

9:30pm Tuesday SBS ONE.