不断扩大的单身人群.doc

How Chinas house price bubble is creating a generation of men without wives不断扩大的单身人群BEIJING When Xiaobo Zhang got married in the early 1990s, he and his bride, like millions of other couples across China, were given a small room to live in by his danwei, or work unit. At the time a lecturer at Nankai University in Tianjin, Zhangs room was utilitarian and unremarkable, virtually indistinguishable from the ones inhabited by his colleagues. In a word: average.20世纪90年代早期张晓波（音）结婚的时候，和其他数百万夫妇一样，他和妻子一起搬进了单位分给他的一间小房子里。当时他是天津南开大学的一名老师，分到的房子实用而普通 几乎和同事们住的房子没什么区别。就一个词:普通。In the China of the 1990s, which was characterized by a pubescent limbo between the economic reforms of the 1980s and the last decades explosive growth, Zhang recalls that mostly everyone was average. People were neatly packed into work units, generally laboring under the same conditions, eating in the same canteens, and sleeping in the same blocks of industrial-looking housing provided by their employers. There was little disparity in salaries, and few cars and luxury handbags to spend those salaries on.由于80年代的经济改革及过去10年里经济的迅猛发展，20世纪90年代的中国正处于茫然的青春期。张回忆说，几乎每个人都很普通，大家都穿着整齐的工作服，在同样的环境下工作，在同样的食堂吃饭，在同样的单位发放的工装房里睡觉。每个人的工资也没太大差别，就算有钱也没地方去买车或者奢侈的手提包。During these times, Zhang explained, occupants paid minimal rent for their work-unit housing - which was issued based on seniority, family size, and rank - and could essentially stay in it forever. There was no legal market for buying and selling property in China, even in rural areas without employer-provided housing, where families built their own homes. Then, in 1998, the Chinese real estate market was born. It began with a decision by the Chinese State Council to monetize housing in an attempt to develop a commercial private market for real estate. In other words, instead of just providing apartments for lifetime occupancy, companies, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies began to give their employees the option to purchase the housing they lived in. Fourteen years and a serious housing construction boom later, Chinas property market has allowed for one of the worlds largest accumulations of real estate wealth in history, valued at $17 trillion in mid-2010 by HSBC Global Research and worth some 3.27 times Chinas GDP. (To better understand the scope of the construction boom that precipitated this massive accumulation of wealth, its worth noting that between 1998 and 2008 alone, 14.4 billion square meters of residential housing space were constructed in China, according to China Statistical Yearbook figures. Thats equivalent to 160 times all the residential space on the entire island of Manhattan.)张解释说，那时候单位分房或论资排辈，或看家里人口多少或看职位高低。住户只需付很少的房租，而且几乎是可以一直住下去的。那时候中国没有买卖房产的合法市场。在农村虽然没有单位住房，但是人们都自己盖房。1998年，中国国务院决定将房屋货币化，希望以此形成民营房地产商业市场，中国房地产市场随之产生。换句话说，公司，非营利性组织和国际机构开始给员工们买下租房的权利，取代了之前只提供长久居住单位房的做法。14年过去了，在经历了一番住房建筑热潮后，中国房地产市场已经成为有史以来世界上最大的房地产财富聚集地之一，据汇丰银行全球研究报告显示，2010年房地产财富总值为17兆亿美元，是中国国内生产总值的3.27倍。要更好地了解这轮住房建筑热何以带来如此巨大的财富积累，可以看中国统计年鉴，仅在1998年到2008年间，中国共增加住房用地1440亿平方米。而这相当于整个曼哈顿所有居住用地的160倍。This is where the definition of average in China starts to go a little wonky.至此“普通”这一概念在中国开始改变。As a result of the real estate boom, reports in Chinese media indicate that the average property in a top-tier Chinese city now costs between 15 and 20 times the average annual salary, though J.P. Morgan reports indicate something closer to 13. (For purposes of comparison, in most of the worlds cities, the housing-cost-to-income ratio hovers between 3-to-1 and 6-to-1, rounding out at about 3-to-1 in the United States.) This is especially problematic in China, where thanks to still-prevalent Confucian ideals of the male as the provider, home ownership has become an unspoken prerequisite to marriage.据中国媒体报道，由于房地产热，中国一线城市的普通房产要价约为人们平均年收入的15到20倍，而摩根大通报告显示约为13倍。世界上大多数城市的房价和收入比在3:1到6:1之间浮动，美国房价与收入比大约是3:1。这在中国是很大的问题，因为大多数中国人仍然坚持男人是一家之主的传统儒家思想，自有住房就成了不言而喻的结婚前提条件。Its a tough, competitive life for men in China these days, in part due to the aftershocks of the one-child policy, which has left the country with a gaping gender imbalance of 120 boys for every 100 girls. Author Mara Hvistendahl reports in her book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, that by late 2020, 15 percent (or roughly one in six) Chinese men of marriageable age will be unable to find a bride. She predicts that China will see an increase in whats already happening in Taiwan and South Korea, where men doomed to bachelorhood as a result of gender imbalance are boarding planes to Vietnam. Roughly $10, 000 covers their flight, room and board, and the price of a Vietnamese wife, according to Hvistendahl, and this practice has become so common that the imported wives get a booklet translated into Vietnamese explaining their rights when they get married at the Taiwanese Consulate.如今中国男人的生活很不容易而且竞争激烈。部分原因是独生子女政策造成国内性别严重失衡。中国男女新生儿的比例达到了121比100。资深作家哈维坦多在她的非自然选择：重男轻女，后果是一个世界全是男人一书中写道，到2020年底，中国将有15%（大约为6个里面有1个）的适龄男子找不到配偶。她预测，未来中国会和现在的台湾和韩国一样，越来越多的男人由于性别失衡成为单身汉，选择飞往越南。哈维坦多还指出，花在来回航班，住宿，和娶回一个越南妻子上的钱大约得10000美元。而且现在这种做法非常普遍，这些从越南来的妻子甚至“可以从台湾领事馆得到一本翻译成越南语的小册子，上面解释了他们结婚后有什么权利”。Although instances of bride-buying and bride-napping are often reported in China, men are also turning to the web in the face of increasingly heavy competition to attract a mate. On Chinas mega microblogging website, Sina Weibo, a page called Save a Single Police Officer was created by the deputy director of a police station in Sichuan province to help his employees find a spouse. He feared that given the gender imbalance and the grueling work hours of his men, they would become guang gun, or bare branches, a term usually used to describe men in China who cannot find a wife.尽管中国也有买婚、抢婚的相关报道，但男人们面对日益严峻的竞争态势也开始把注意力转向微博。在中国大型微博网站上，四川省一名警察局副局长创建了名为“拯救单身警察”的专页，帮他的下属找对象。他担心性别失衡和艰苦的工作让他们变成光棍。在中国“光棍”常被用于指找不见老婆的男人。The page launched this February with the profiles of five police officers, including a strapping young man with a gun who goes by the name of Cola427. Offering a mix of local news, weather reports, and the profiles of single officers (including some female ones) who have been added to the mix, the page now has more than 55, 000 followers. This July, a post encouraged all citizens to rejoice because Cola427 (with over 6, 000 followers of his own), age 29, measuring in at 1.78 meters and 70 kilos, had found the love of his life through the site.该页2月份创建，上面有5名警察的个人资料，其中有一个持枪的魁梧的年青男警察，名叫“可乐427”。主页上有当地新闻，天气预报，和后来加上去的单身警察的个人资料（包括一些女警察），现在已有55000多名支持者。今年7月，一个贴子让所有人都感到高兴，因为29岁，身高1.78米，体重70公斤的可乐427（他本身就有超过6000人的支持者）终于找到了他的爱情。Millions of other Chinese men are not so lucky. While the most disadvantaged are the countrys poor male farmers, who now live at societys rock bottom in rural villages devoid of women their age (as females tend to leave in search of better jobs and marriage prospects), the marriage challenge is rippling its way up through the classes. It is manifested most clearly in Chinas real estate market, where - given the highly desirable nature of property - men are pouring all their savings as a means of improving their chances of finding Mrs. Right, or any Mrs. for that matter.然而其他数十万中国男人并不是像他那样幸运。其中最不幸的要数生活在农村社会底层的男性农民，他们很穷而且没有适合他们年龄的女性（因为大多数女性为了更好地工作或婚姻都离开农村）。但是这种婚姻挑战已经迅速蔓延到了社会的各个阶层。这在中国房地产市场上表现的淋漓尽致。除了房产本身的吸引力外，男人们倾其所有储蓄购买房子希望以此增加找见“白雪公主”的机会。Mathematically, they cant get married, says Zhang, referring to younger Chinese men and their double burden of financial demands and the shortage of available women to marry. In 1994, he moved out of his danwei to study for a Ph.D. at Cornell University in the United States. Today, he works as a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington and as a professor at Peking University. Along with Columbia University economist Shang-Jin Wei, he has published several studies on Chinas economic growth, including one that shows how 30 to 48 percent (or $8 trillion worth) of the real estate appreciation in 35 major Chinese cities is directly correlated with Chinas sex-ratio imbalance and a mans need to acquire wealth (property) in order to attract a wife.1994年，他搬出单位住房前往美国康奈尔大学攻读博士学位，现在在位于华盛顿的国际粮食政策研究所任高级研究员。他与哥伦比亚大学经济学家魏尚金（音）一起发表了一些关于中国经济增长的研究。其中一份研究显示，在中国35个大城市里，30%到40%的房产升值（价值8兆亿美元）与中国的性别失衡及想要找到配偶的男性的购房需求有直接关系。Mother-in-law syndrome - the idea that Chinese mothers-in-law are driving up the price of real estate by refusing to allow their daughters to marry men who are not homeowners - has been widely reported in China, but Zhang and Wei take things a step further. They show how Chinese cities with the highest ratio of men to women are also consistently the ones with the highest percentages of real estate appreciation, which follows the logic that fewer women means more competition among men and a greater need for a flashy house. At the same time, rental prices in these cities have increased minimally by comparison, lending credence to the theory that the rise in real estate prices is not driven by an actual demand for housing, but by the demand to own a house.一种观点认为中国的岳母拒绝让自己的女儿嫁给没有房子的男性也导致了房价的上涨。这种观点被称为“岳母综合症”，在中国被广泛报道。但张和魏的研究更加深入。据他们的研究显示中国男女比例最高的城市也是房产升值百分比最高的城市。这也就意味着一个城市里女性越少，男性之间的竞争就越激烈，房子的需求也就越大。与此同时，这些城市里的房租价格仅有小幅度的增长，因此人们越来越相信，房价上涨并不是因为想要房子住，而仅仅是要有一套房子。This demand has no doubt contributed to fears over Chinas housing bubble, which has been the source of concerned speculation now that Chinas economic growth has slowed to 7.6 percent, the lowest since 2009. A recent IMF publication shows how a decline in the Chinese real estate market could do everything from affect the price of zinc and nickel to trigger a trade slowdown with South Korea, Japan, and other G-20 partners. Yet from the marriage-market perspective, the demand for property appears unrelenting.这种需求无疑引起人们对于中国房地产泡沫的担心，有人猜测，正是房地产泡沫造成中国经济发展放缓至7.6%，这是自2009年以来的最低数值。国际货币基金组织的一份最新刊物显示，中国房地产市场的萎缩会影响方方面面，包括锌、镍的价格以及减少中国与韩国、日本和其它20国集团国家的贸易。Berlin Fang, a columnist, literary translator, and associate director at the North Institute for Teaching and Learning at Oklahoma Christian University, argues that the demands of the marriage market and Chinas relatively new market economy are so heavy that Chinese men have lost the ability to be average. Like Zhang, he recalls the days of the danwei with bittersweet nostalgia, as a time when people werent so quick to size each other up in terms of their market value. There was a certain comfort and ease to being average, one that has become extinct, given the extreme competition to be one of the haves. In such a densely populated country, Fang insists that average is the new mediocre.方柏林（音）是一个专栏作家和文学翻译家，现任俄克拉荷马基督大学教育学院协同董事。他认为婚姻市场的需求和中国相对较新的市场经济给中国男性带来的很大的压力，“他们已经失去了成为平凡人的能力”。和张一样，他也很怀念以前苦乐参半的单位生活。当时，人们并不忙着就自己的市场价值你追我赶。作个普通人很自在。然而现在这种自在的舒适已经消失了，人们都抢着成为“富人”。方还说道，在一个人口这么多的国家里，“平凡就意味着新的平庸”。The distinction between average and mediocre is one that has been ticking on the Chinese national psyche, as indicated by one of the questions on last years gaokao, Chinas notorious college entrance exam:中国人一直在强调“平凡”和“平庸”的区别，这一点从去年的一道高考题目中就可一窥一二。高考即中国众所周知的大学入学考试。Fang notes that the question was a source of heated debate, as there were concerns that todays students might not be able to distinguish between mediocre and average. In a country where the social pressure to excel is so acute and mediocrity is rarely an option, Fang agrees that the question is knotty. He suspects it was designed to make students understand that its acceptable to be average, so long as its an aspirational average, not a feckless one.方指出，这个题目引起了激烈的讨论，因为有人担心现在的学生可能不知道“平庸”和“平凡”的区别。在中国这样一个人人都想要出类拔萃的社会大环境下，没有人想选择平庸，方也觉得这个题目很困难。他怀疑出这道题目是想让学生们明白，平凡是可以接受的，只要你想要要做一个积极向上的平凡人，而不是一个一事无成的平凡人。Examples of responses that earned perfect scores can be found on Chinese news portal S, including one that tells the story of Wang Xiaobo. Following a subpar performance at the office, Wang does not receive the bonus he was expecting. When, over a meal of freshly prepared fish, he reveals to his wife that he was denied his bonus, she, putting down her chopsticks and losing color in her face, laments that she is destined to live a lowly life, having such a good-for-nothing husband. After nursing his woes with a bit of alcohol, Wang hands his life savings over to a shady investment banker and eventually loses everything. Naturally, he heads to a lake to commit suicide, but instead ends up saving a nearby drowning woman. This good deed restores his honor, and he eventually becomes the hardworking, well-earning man whom his wife wants him to be.在中国新闻门户网站新浪网上有很多令人满意的回复，其中一个讲述了王晓波（音）的故事。由于在工作中的不佳表现，王没有获得预期的奖金。妻子在家为他准备了新鲜的鱼汤，吃饭的时候，他说自己没有拿到奖金。妻子顿时“放下筷子，面容失色”，抱怨说有这么一个饭桶老公，看来自己只能过苦日子了。对酒消愁后，王把所有的积蓄交给了一家靠不住的银行，血本无归。于是他便跑去湖边跳湖，结果却救了附近一个溺水的女孩。这种见义勇为广受褒扬，最终他变成了妻子希望的那样，工作努力，收入也很丰厚。While Wangs story certainly reflects a triumph over mediocrity, the fact that his wifes well-being is so dependent on his financial performance, and that Wang is so clearly depicted as her provider, reflects how ingrained these ideas remain in modern Chinese society.虽然王晓波（音）的故事证明了人可以战胜平庸，但是却反映出现代中国社会一个根深蒂固的思想：他的妻子的幸福完全依赖于他的经济状况，王晓波一人维持着家里的生计。Yet because its nearly economically impossible for most Chinese men - average or otherwise - to be the providers they aspire to be, they frequently have to rely on their parents for financial support. This is a slippery slope, as it often gives progenitors more control than warranted over their sons choice of a partner, but Chinese parents - keen to have their sons dutifully snuggled into wedlock - gladly chip in. Zhang and Weis study shows how this plays into Chinas household savings rate, which at 30 percent is among the worlds highest. They argue that this fact is of particular economic concern, as the high marriage-related savings rate contributes to Chinas current account surplus, which in turn drives down Chinas exchange rate and perpetuates the global trade imbalance.然而，大多数中国男人-无论普通与否-在经济上都几乎不可能满足他想要达到的程度，因此他们经常不得不依赖父母的帮助。这样很危险，因为父母往往因此对于儿子在选择对象上有更大的控制权。但是中国父母认为自己有责任让儿子拥有幸福的婚姻，所以愿意提供经济上的帮助。张和魏的研究表明这对中国居民储蓄率也产生了影响。婚姻存款占总储蓄的30%，比例之高为世界之最。他们认为这一事实会带来经济上的担忧，因为高婚姻储蓄率造成中国目前账户盈余，这反过来降低了汇率，使全球贸易不平衡的问题持续下去。Its completely unsustainable, says Zhang, arguing that the exact opposite - less saving, more spending - is what Chinas economy needs to keep afloat. But because men need to buy homes, they save. And because their demand for homes drives up real estate property, everyone else must save too, in order to keep up.“这完全是不可持续的，”张说，同时他还指出，少存钱多消费才是中国经济持续发展所需要的。但是由于男人需要买房，所以他们存钱。而他们对于房子的需求又促使房价上涨，其他人又不得不存钱。Seventy-one percent of single women prefer that their future husbands be homeowners, according to the 2010 Marriage Market Survey in China. It is culturally approved - even expected - for a woman to free-ride and move into her husbands house without making any contributions to it, but given the astronomical cost of housing, more women are helping to cover costs too. Doctoral research by Leta Hong Fincher of Tsinghua University focuses on Chinese women who are pitching in, if not shouldering, the joint purchase of a home with their husbands. She points out that this may work to their disadvantage down the road. Due to traditional, yet increasingly improbable, ideals of the man as the sole provider, homes are generally registered under a mans name. According to Chinese law, property belongs only to the person whose name it is registered under, so in the event of a divorce, women who are not listed as co-owners will lose out on financial contributions to their former marital home. Fincher also cites instances in which young women are hassled by parents into transferring their lifes savings to a bachelor relative, so he can use the money to buy a house and increase his chances of finding a wife. Because it is assumed that a woman will marry into a house, the logic goes that she has a less pressing need for savings of her own.据2000年中国婚姻市场调查显示，71%的单身女性希望自己未来的丈夫有房子。中国人历来都认为女孩子嫁人就应该直接搬进丈夫家中，不需做任何贡献。考虑到如今天文般的数字的高房价，越来越多的女性也会尽自己的一份力帮助未婚夫。清华大学的Leta Hong Fincher博士主要研究和丈夫共同分担买房的女性。她指出这长久下去女性会吃亏。中国的传统思想是男人是家里唯一的经济来源，因此一般情况下，房主都是男人的名字，但这种传统思想正变得越来越不可能成为现实。根据中国相关法律，房子只属于房主。所以倘若离婚，女性由于没被列为房子的共同拥有人而吃亏。Fincher还举例说，有些女性还不停地被父母唠叨，要她们把存款给单身的男性亲人，这样他们就可以用这些钱买房，更有可能找到妻子。因为人们都认为女人嫁人的时候会有一座房子，所以她们不是那么迫切的需要存钱。On the other hand, women who are homeowners before marriage are considered better off, and this can actually improve their chances of marrying up into the echelons of moneyed men who have bigger houses than they do. Jeannie Wang, 29, of Beijing, is one of those women. Well-employed at a major auditing firm, she purchased an apartment as an investment and plans to live at home with her parents until marriage. Ideally, I would like a man to also have a house of his own, or at least the earning potential so that we can buy one together, she says, slightly concerned that having a man move into her house would humiliate him. I wouldnt mind so much if I really cared for him, but its something I think few Chinese men would go for.另一方面，有房的未婚女性被认为很富裕，这使得她们更有机会“攀高枝”，即嫁给有更大房子的有钱男人。29岁的北京女孩王珍妮（音）就是一个例子。她在一家大型的审计公司工作，购买了一套房用于投资，计划结婚前和父母住在家里。她说：“我未来的丈夫最好有自己的房子，或者至少在经济上有以后买房的能力”。她有点担心，如果让未来的丈夫搬进自己的房子住会让他感觉没面子。“如果我真的喜欢他，我不会在乎这些，但是我估计很少中国男人会这么做。”Her case illustrates the double-edged nature of female property ownership in China. Own something, and it might allow you to marry someone with something bigger. Own something too big, and it could intimidate potential suitors.她的情况反映出在中国女性拥有房子的利与弊。如果有房，你可能嫁给一个有更大的房子的人。如果你的房太大，反而可能吓跑那些想要追求你的人。For men, however, bigger is always better. Zhang recalls visiting villages in China that were bedizened with a phantom third story. This type of construction refers to a two-story house with an unfurnished, unfinished third story built to make the house appear more grandiose from the outside. The trend has taken