A phrase gained popularity on Chinese social media earlier this year. The statement effectively announced the premature demise of the century-old Chinese Dream by describing a terrifying prospect unfolding in China.
The expression “getting old before getting rich” was commonly used in Chinese public discourse around 2023-2025 to describe China’s demographic and economic anxiety: the country is aging rapidly before it has reached the per capita income levels of wealthy nations. While the problem is self-evident in the Chinese population and gender data, its origins are more than four decades ago, and its unintended repercussions are just beginning to manifest.
China implemented its one-child policy in the late 1970s. A classic example of the excesses of the welfare and totalitarian nations of the 20th century, the dictatorial policy that regulated a woman’s fertility and family life had few historical counterparts. Ironically, the policy that was imposed on the public at the altar of economic growth and prosperity is now identified as the main obstacle to China’s continued progress and prosperity. Unbelievably, the poorly thought out and poorly executed one-child policy is the reason why China is currently on the verge of aging before achieving the affluence levels of Western countries.
This seems to be just one of the many unforeseen effects of the one-child policy. On the other hand, it is also making young Chinese men frantically search Bangladesh and Pakistan, China’s impoverished neighbors, for brides.
China’s median age is already 40.2, which is on line with wealthy nations. For example, the median age in the United Kingdom is 40.6. It is 38.5 for the United States. However, according to the IMF, the UK’s average per capita income (USD 62,000) is more than double that of China’s (USD 26,310). China’s per capita income is less than three times that of the United States (USD 89,105). In addition, China is expected to age over the next several years. China’s median age will be 42.9 by 2030, 48.6 by 2040, and 52.1 by 2050, according to database.earth.
China has now loosened its regulations, permitting couples to have two or even three children, after realizing the foolishness of the one-child policy. However, this might already be too late. China’s current fertility rate is 1.1, which is about half of the replacement level (2.1). China’s fertility rate will linger at 1.1 until 2050, then show a small improvement, rising to 1.3 by 2070. Additionally, the average number of births per year is declining. China had 17.9 million new births in 2010; by 2020, that number had decreased to 11.1 million, and by the end of this century, it will have fallen to 8.3 million by 2030, 7.3 million by 2050, and 3 million. China’s population has already peaked and will continue to drop due to declining birth rates.
China’s population, which is currently estimated to be 1.42 billion, would drop to 1.26 billion by 2050 and 633 million by 2100. A growing number of older (non-working) people will require the help of fewer and fewer people due to an aging society and dwindling population. China formally repealed the one child policy in 2015 and is already launching numerous programs to encourage individuals to have more children. In order to encourage families to have more children, many industrialized nations offer financial assistance, employment equality, and nursery facilities. However, China faces a unique challenge: the imbalance between the number of men and women of the childbearing age range. This is another unintended consequence of the one child policy.
Abortion of female fetuses became common due to the lethal combination of a deeply patriarchal society and the freedom to have only one child. This gender imbalance implies that for millions of young men in China, falling in the childbearing age bracket, there are simply no women to get married to. In China, there is a term for these men. They are referred to as the “leftover men” of China.
In China, there is an excess of almost 35 million men. The current generation is the most affected by this gender disparity. But it will take at least another 20 years until things get better. Even while things will get a little better after 20 years, the gender disparity at birth will still exist. Only 38.4 million women and 44.4 million men make up the 25–29 age group, according to the UN World Population Prospects 2024. Although it gets less in absolute terms over successive cohorts, the difference is still substantial.
There are millions more men than women in every age category, according to research. China’s efforts to persuade individuals to have more children would be hampered by this gender disparity. There aren’t enough women in China for the millions of “leftover Chinese men” to marry. Millions of Chinese men are now searching outside of China for a wife as a result.
For a variety of factors, including their proximity to China, cordial relations with Beijing, and relative poverty, nations like Bangladesh and Pakistan are at the top of the list in this global bride hunt. As a result, Bangladesh and Pakistan are quickly becoming a bride market for Chinese men who have departed. Sensing an opportunity, however, a number of middlemen have entered the market, taking advantage of weak women and selling them as prostitutes by offering to marry wealthy Chinese men. Even if the marriage is legitimate, the ladies confront several challenges. Often, they can not speak or read Chinese. China and Pakistan have very different cultures.
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These young women from Bangladesh and Pakistan are suddenly in a foreign nation, surrounded by strangers, and unable to speak because of a language barrier. When Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) declared in early 2019 that it had broken up a suspected prostitution ring that was trafficking young Pakistani women to China, cross-border weddings between Pakistan and China began to garner significant attention. Later that year, an Associated Press investigation, drawing on Pakistani authorities’ findings, found more than 600 cases of women and girls who had married Chinese men through these networks; many were apparently duped and then coerced into prostitution. Additionally, 52 Chinese traffickers were detained and charged by Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency. However, within months, most of these patients were discharged.
Such examples of Chinese bride trafficking are not isolated to Pakistan: the practice has been documented in Laos, North Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Cambodia as well. However, the problem seems to be more pervasive in Pakistan and Bangladesh. A 2022 Brookings Institution article claims that Pakistan has effectively ignored the issue because of its close ties to China and the need to draw in investment from Beijing.
Earlier in May this year, the Chinese Embassy in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka urged its residents against marrying local women to avoid being duped by criminal gangs who sell women under the premise of marriage. The possibility of marrying a wealthy Chinese man is seen by Pakistan’s minority Christian women as a way to get away from poverty and religious persecution. She also documented how some Pakistani women have gotten married more than once in order to receive two payments because the marriage really entails the bride purchasing. It remains to be seen how governments will respond to these developing activities and what protection will be afforded to these women, who are either tricked or trafficked, or even otherwise, find themselves entirely isolated in a strange nation.
