Great expectations: Chinese women’s ideal man should earn 6,701 yuan a month – more than twice national average
Most mainland women also regard ownership of a property by any would-be suitor as a prerequisite for marriage, says new online dating survey
How much should a man earn to be considered as a potential partner in the eyes of Chinese women? More than twice what they actually pull in, according to a survey by an online dating site.
Jiayuan.com questioned more than 15,000 unmarried people about their views on the intersection of romance and money, and found the “fairer” sex has high expectations indeed.
Women wanted their partner to earn on average at least 6,701 yuan (US$1,028 or HK$8,005) a month if they were to consider them suitable. But in reality the national average of men is only 2,808 yuan.
READ MORE: Wedding scramble: end to China’s policy of holidays for ‘late marriages’ leads to dash for the registry
It also seems the younger the woman, the higher the salary they thought their partner should earn. Women born in the 1980s said their ideal boyfriend should earn a minimum of 6,993 yuan a month – the highest out of all age ranges.
Those women born before 1970 had the lowest expectations and thought their partners should earn at least 5,201 yuan per month, said the survey published on Sunday – Valentine’s Day.
Geographically, women in the southeast had the highest monthly salary demands for their partners – almost 7,400 yuan.
For men, they thought the average minimum monthly income of potential partners should be 3,398 yuan – women earned on average 1,940 yuan.
Income are slightly higher in urban areas. A national survey by Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-Sen University found the average income in 2014 was 3,346 yuan for men and 2,392 yuan for women.
READ MORE: Symbol of love at 98 and 63: Chinese couple’s marriage in their twilight years moves benefactor to give them gift of diamond ring
The dating site survey also showed that most women regarded the ownership of a property by any would-be suitor as a prerequisite for marriage.
It also showed that most men were comfortable with their wives controlling their purse strings; one in five said they would hand over their payslips to their wives voluntarily; another 42 per cent said they would do so if asked, according to the survey.
However, a significant number of men polled who were earning more than 10,000 yuan per month said they preferred not to hand their payslips to their wives.
Only 2 per cent of women said they would ask for their husbands’ payslips, while 74 per cent said they would not refuse it, if their husbands chose to hand over their money to them.
READ MORE: Wedding scramble: end to China’s policy of holidays for ‘late marriages’ leads to dash for the registry
The survey also discovered that one third of mainland men and half of women taking part insisted that any potential partner’s family must match their own in terms of both social and economic standing.
.
