Chinese are looking for “Trophy Women” and “Trophy Men”

Chinese are looking for “Trophy Women” and “Trophy Men”

Economy Applicable Woman

What is “Economy Applicable Woman”? Here are some key words to describe:

·         Height: 158cm to 175cm

·         Weight: 45kg to 55kg

·         Bachelor degree or above

·         Shoulder-length hair style with tender and mild character

·         Salary range (per month): 3,000 RMB to 6,000 RMB

·         Know how to cook and do laundry

·         Responsible to attend family members and loyal to the husband

·         Prefer staying at home to shopping in the mall

·         Able to afford half of the expense on apartment

After this concept was published on Sina Microblog, the tweet was retweeted more than 10,000 times and received almost 4,000 comments. Among those comments, most of them were from women who expressed that the standard is too strict as for the segment of weight. Subsequently, a small scale of online poll shows that 37% people say that this standard is reliable and perfectly matching the features of “Economy Applicable Man”, whereas 24% of people think it is a high standard for “trophy lady”. All these discussions can be surprising but common in China.

Economy suitable Man

The thought of to be a gold digger seems to gradually collapse from the mainstream view of value in China. To some extends, emerge of “Economy Applicable Boy” concept was not carried out by accident, but it is an inevitable result of society development. In 2007, the Women’s Federation defined “leftover” women (sheng nv 剩女) as unmarried women, who over the age of 27, received a higher level of education, and who is beautiful with high income. The basic reason why this group people have not got married with someone is because they put high expectation and standard on the male candidate. Perhaps this concept helps to hold some girls back and stimulate a new standard of mate selection. According to a public opinion survey organized by the dating website such as Baihe and Jiayuan, more than 60% of female told they hope to get married with someone who is qualified to match “Economy Applicable Man” criteria. What are the criteria of this type of guy? Here is a list of key words to explain:

·         Ordinary appearance

·         Tender and moderate

·         No smoking and drinking

·         Be loyal to his wife and no intimate relation with any other lady

·         Stable salary range (per month): 3,000 RMB to 10,000 RMB

·         Hand over his salary to the wife

·         Working field: Education industry, IT industry, Machinery Manufacture industry, Technology industry, and etc...

·         Able to afford down payment for an apartment

Financial Crisis Changed the Standards of Mate-selection

The stats coming from Zhenai Website illustrates the changes in the psychology of women before and after the financial crisis in 2008. Among their 15 million female members, the number of respondents who want to date with men who own a dependent flat declined from 51.8% to 12.3%, who owns a private car fell from 33.1% to 3.3%. In addition, a social research towards 2,845 female respondents done by China Youth News demonstrated that women who think finding a true love is a success count for 56.1%, while people who think marrying a rich man is equivalent to success grabs only 5.6%.

Written by Limo from Daxue Consulting, a marketing study firm in China