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Women pioneering late marriage in the near universal and early marriage context in China have increasingly been castigated as "leftover" women in recent years, generating a media frenzy and societal obsession in China that has drawn global attention. This book sheds critical light on this new phenomenon and places it within the context of deteriorating gender equality in China, paired with rapid modernization and globalization and a resurgence of Confucian tradition. Drawing on both in-depth interviews and surveys, it reveals linkages between the most personal decisions in people's everyday lives and profound social transformations rooted in the institutional and cultural context of China.

Ji uses both interview and survey data to analyse the nature and extent of the "leftover" women phenomenon in China. She argues that it is mainly a social construction and that the reality has become distorted in the Chinese popular imagination. Moreover, she explores the connections between the phenomena of urban "leftover" women and rural "surplus" men in China's marriage market. The book shows how marriage mismatch has transformed marriage as a traditional social institution in China and deepened the social stratification in Chinese society.