Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World's Next Superpower

China's single women - are they the source of its future? Forty years ago in China, marriage was universal, compulsory and a woman's only means to a livelihood. Then the one-child policy resulted in China's first generations of urban only-daughters girls who were pushed to study, achieve and succeed as if they were sons. Now, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage or not marry at all to spawn a label: 'leftovers'. They struggle to find partners in a society where gender roles have not evolved as vigorously as the society itself. Part critique of China s paternalistic ideals, part playful portrait of the romantic travails of China s trailblazing women, Leftover in China employs colourful anecdotes, hundreds of interviews and rigorous historical and demographic research to show how the leftovers are the linchpin to China's future.