~~META:
description abstract=Xie Zuoshi applies economic logic to China's severe gender imbalance. However, his nuanced analysis was widely misunderstood, being oversimplified and controversially branded as a 'wife-sharing' solution.
~~

====== The "30 Million Single Men" Scare Is Unfounded ======
 --- //[[xie:start|Xie Zuoshi]] Originally Publised in 2015/10 //


A news report suggests that China will have between 30 and 40 million single men in 2020. A predicted social dilemma seems to surface, with 30 million bachelors gathering to protest social injustice, facing a future of having no one to rely on in old age and dying alone---a situation that would create a very serious social problem.

Will this really happen?

Without denying the fact of potentially 30 million single men, I deny that such a severe social problem will inevitably arise.

Flawed economics posits the concepts of //shortage// and //surplus//, but coherent economics holds that such issues do not exist. The reasoning((The same reasonling applies to Xie's analysis of Exchange Rate in his work //[[books:Macroeconomics Has No Clothes]]//)) is as follows: humans can control monetary prices, but they cannot control non-monetary prices, and the total cost is the sum of monetary and non-monetary prices. If you lower monetary prices, non-monetary prices will rise, and vice versa. If you suppress train ticket prices, people will line up in an overcrowded queue. The time spent waiting in line and its caused discomfort are also costs of taking the train---these are called non-monetary prices. Ultimately, the total cost of taking the train remains unchanged. If you raise the minimum wage, people will also line up for job interviews or rely on social reciprocity to get hired. After accounting for these costs, the real income from work remains unchanged in the end.

Prices balance supply and demand---and it is the real price, not the nominal one, that counts. Price controls alter nominal prices, not real ones. Why, then, do they still cause shortages and surpluses?

The existence of single men merely increases the relative scarcity of women, raising their price; it absolutely does not mean that the market for the two sexes will fail to clear, resulting in a surplus of men. From this perspective, the bachelor problem and its related sexual issues become a matter of income.

Men with high incomes will find partners first, because they can afford to pay a high price.
What about men with low incomes? One solution is for several men to pool their resources to find a single wife. This is not some far-fetched idea of mine; in remote, impoverished areas, it is common for several brothers to jointly marry one wife, and they live happily together.

What if they are unwilling to share a wife, or if the law does not permit polyandry? Then they may indeed have no choice but to remain single. But being a bachelor does not mean they cannot have a sex life. Since the existence of 30 million bachelors has raised the price for sex with women, this will increase the supply of women.

After the [China’s] Reform and Opening-up, the gender ratio became severely imbalanced in some coastal areas, but does that mean sexual issues cannot be resolved? Have you heard of couples living together without marriage? Have you heard of several women supporting one boyfriend? Is it impossible for several men to support one woman? Besides, there are salon workers and streetwalkers… aren’t these also ways to satisfy sexual needs?

Sexual needs must always be met; if they cannot be dealt legally, they will be met illegally; if they cannot be met in the open, they will be dealt in the shadows. The existence of 30 million single men is a done fact that cannot be changed in the short term. However the market will always find a way to clear itself. The only question is which way we are willing to accept. Of course, we could choose to ban both polyandry and extramarital sex—but then we would have to accept social instability. Fortunately, this choice is unfeasible.

Emotional venting isn't science. Science is about using rationality to predict the future. The 30 million single men may not necessarily lead to serious social problems, but it will certainly bring about sexual freedom. If real problems did arise, the fault lay with the law and prevailing conceptual frameworks themselves.

Essentially, all problems boil down to issues of price and income. If we are truly concerned about the 30 million single men, then we should simply focus on developing the economy. As the economy grows and these bachelors’ incomes rise, women from Southeast Asia and Africa will come to marry them.

The other side of the issue is that we may be overlooking China’s specific national conditions and exaggerating the reality of the 30 million single men.

As is well known, China faces serious food safety and environmental pollution issues. For example, the use of estrogen has already become rampant. In addition to the large quantities of birth control pills taken by women, there are various additives in animal feed. Are the consequences limited to early puberty in girls? For instance, there have been reports of girls as young as two or three developing breasts and starting their periods. Could this also affect men?

With the proliferation of estrogen, even if it doesn’t reduce the number of men, might it reduce their sexual desire?

An interesting phenomenon is that I’m surrounded by more older single women than older single men, and it’s mostly the parents of these women—not the men—who ask me to set them up on dates. You might argue that this is because you live in the city, where there are more older single women, whereas in rural areas there are more older single men; or that in higher socioeconomic circles there are more older single women, while in lower ones there are more older single men, since men are willing to marry down while women generally aim to marry up. I can’t argue with that. But why are the main participants in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_dancing_(China)|square dancing]] middle-aged women? Where have the middle-aged men gone? Don’t just say it’s because men have shorter lifespans and women live longer—and husbands are usually older than their wives. The middle-aged women who can dance in the squares still have their husbands. The only possible conclusion is that the men no longer have that need, nor do they have the physical stamina for it. I look forward to the field of medicine providing an answer!

I even suspect that legalizing same-sex marriage might help alleviate the problem of the 30 million single men.

 --- //Translated by ''Project1985'' on 2026/05/21 from [[zh:articles:the-30-million-single-men-scare-is-unfounded|“3000万光棍”是杞人忧天]]//