Shanghai natives seek own kind

Nearly 80 percent of young, single people in Shanghai said they want their partners to have been born in the city, a survey showed.

The survey of more than 1,800 people aged 18 to 40 in Shanghai also found that the number of "leftover men" - those still single in their 30s - is larger than that of "leftover women".

Zhou Juemin, one of the initiators of the survey and president of Shanghai Matchmaking Organization Administration Association, said on Tuesday that there's a huge "marriage market" in Shanghai and other parts of China, and the survey will help the organization do a better job.

In the past five years, eight large matchmaking events were held in Shanghai, each of them boasting more than 10,000 participants, she said.

According to the survey, 77.4 percent of the respondents born in Shanghai said they only wanted Shanghai natives as partners. People born in East, South and Southwest China, and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, are inclined to have partners born in South China, the survey showed.

The ratio between leftover men and women was 53.3 to 46.7, according to the figures released by the municipal government in March.

Experts said that leftover women, rather than men, often feel concerned about their situation because females place higher importance on their marriage and relationship status.

"It is the same case with people from other parts of China," Zhou said. "Generally speaking, young Chinese people are more desirous of marrying someone from the same birthplace because they share similar habits and customs."

But that leads to an increasing difficulty for non-natives in the city to find ideal partners, she added.

Shu Xin, director of the Weiqing Group, an agency based in Shanghai that provides counseling services in more than 40 cities nationwide, said that young people should "liberate their minds" and explore more ways of making friends.

"When making friends, many people now ask questions about money or houses on first dates," he said. "A relationship should start from the cultivation of emotional bonds."

The survey also showed that apart from conventional matchmaking, popular approaches for young people in Shanghai involve websites, cell phone apps and TV programs.

What's more, 72.4 percent of male respondents and 88.2 percent of female respondents said that they could not put up with a partner with a low EQ, or emotional quotient. As a result, an increasing number of companies and institutes provide marriage lectures for employees to learn "the ability to love".

As for "an ideal partner", male respondents hoped that their partner could be "young and pretty", while the opposite sex said their husbands or boyfriends should be "competent and rich".

Chen Yani, 24, a PhD student in Shanghai, said she has already foreseen the potential difficulty in finding a Mr Right.

"I'm living in a very small circle. People I'm acquainted with are mainly classmates. I may have to resort to the help of matchmaking services," she said.

Wen Wenyi contributed to this story.