Cities like Beijing and Shanghai are filling up with people who have moved away from their families and friends. These big-city newcomers don’t have a local social network, and like anybody else, want to find new friends, and new love.

That is why millions of Chinese are turning to online dating as a solution to relationship woes in a society where the social pressure to find a partner can be oppressive.

Chinese parents commonly expect their sons or daughters to be married by the time they reach 30.

These older men without a wife and without children are called “bare branches” and the social stigma against these unmarried men is strong. Therefore, helping them meet their match is BIG, BIG business in China.

Did you know:

There are 122 baby boys born each year in China for every 100 girls, and millions of Chinese men are finding it difficult to find a wife.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, by 2020 there will be 24 million more men of marrying age than women.

The centuries-old preference for boys, coupled with the millions of aborted female fetuses, puts China at the top of countries where boys outnumber girls. By the way, the ratio of boys to girls in the U.S. is 1.05-to-1.

The odds get dramatically worse, the older a man gets. For Chinese in their 30s, the number of single men to single women is estimated to be nearly 10-to-1. Approximately 5% of Chinese men in their late 30s have never married. That number could hit 15% by 2020, and 25% by 2040.

According to research by the National Women’s Union, China currently has 180 million bachelors, and up to half of them are estimated to be looking for love online. Those numbers mean big business, and that is why Chinese online dating sites attracted three million paying customers last year who collectively spent $150 million.

The online dating market in China is projected by iResearch to grow from US$75 million to US$292 million by 2015. That is a 31% compound annual growth rate, and could grow to three to four times its current size in the next four to five years.

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