A colleague recently wrote a story on why many singles gave family reunion dinners on the eve of Chinese New Year a miss this year. Her interviewees, mostly women, said they wanted to avoid being asked when they would marry. Parents and relatives of some unmarried people in China tend to raise the topic on such culturally significant occasions.

If you are a single female at age 32, you are likely to be viewed as "leftover", according to a Chinese online dating site. The cutoff age for single men is 35.

The term "leftover" is deplorable, and individual attitudes toward marriage should matter most. Besides, women are under less financial pressure to find a husband in China today than in previous times. But the situation is probably posing a problem for the country's single men, going by the gender ratio.