The article on "The Price of Marriage in China" is very interesting and gives me an insight on the extent that the men and women go to for marriage in China in this era. The article explores two different stories about women who are both associated with the matchmaking process. One about a woman Ms. Yang who works as a full time premier love hunter in one of the biggest matchmaking companies in China, Diamond Love and Marriage who undertook the challenge of searching for the ideal woman for her affluent client, known as Mr. Big in the article who was prepared to spend half a million dollars while the other story looks into the life of Ms. Yu who is desperately in search of a bride for her 37 year old bachelor son who does not have much to offer financially. The main ideas alluded in this article include:
i. the imbalance between the male and female population.
The ratio of male to female as stated in the article is 118 males to 100 females. This clearly shows that there is a lack in supply of the male population to meet the female population hence causing the male population to be in surplus which result in males being unable to have a spouse. With there being more males than females, ultimately there will be a demand for females by males who are experiencing difficulty in searching for their ideal partner, hence matchmaking companies like Diamond Love and Marriage exist in the society. Women too, that receive higher level of education often find it tough to find a spouse as Chinese men do not want to be subordinate to the women in the relationship.
ii. the extent people are willing to go to for love.
With there being so many single men in China who are in a dire state looking for love, be it wealthy single men or working class single men, it has become a point that it has become so difficult to find love that men would go to such a great extent just for love. In this article, men that have money are able to engage the services of matchmaking companies like Diamond Love and Marriage to try their luck on finding a suitor for themselves; in other situations whereby the man does not have extra money to spare on paying for these matchmaking services, they do it with signboards that entail very general details about themselves just like how Ms. Yu did so. The women in this case can be seen as supply that is lacking, therefore, when demand is high but supply is slow, people, in this case the men, are willing to pay high prices (go to great extents) in order to meet their demand with the low supply of women available. This can be referred to in the supply and demand diagrams as attached below.
i. the imbalance between the male and female population.
The ratio of male to female as stated in the article is 118 males to 100 females. This clearly shows that there is a lack in supply of the male population to meet the female population hence causing the male population to be in surplus which result in males being unable to have a spouse. With there being more males than females, ultimately there will be a demand for females by males who are experiencing difficulty in searching for their ideal partner, hence matchmaking companies like Diamond Love and Marriage exist in the society. Women too, that receive higher level of education often find it tough to find a spouse as Chinese men do not want to be subordinate to the women in the relationship.
ii. the extent people are willing to go to for love.
With there being so many single men in China who are in a dire state looking for love, be it wealthy single men or working class single men, it has become a point that it has become so difficult to find love that men would go to such a great extent just for love. In this article, men that have money are able to engage the services of matchmaking companies like Diamond Love and Marriage to try their luck on finding a suitor for themselves; in other situations whereby the man does not have extra money to spare on paying for these matchmaking services, they do it with signboards that entail very general details about themselves just like how Ms. Yu did so. The women in this case can be seen as supply that is lacking, therefore, when demand is high but supply is slow, people, in this case the men, are willing to pay high prices (go to great extents) in order to meet their demand with the low supply of women available. This can be referred to in the supply and demand diagrams as attached below.
In my opinion, I feel that this article presents supply and demand in a very fascinating way that is easily comprehensible. This article refers to current issues faced in China in this era that is reflected in this article with detailed information and illustrated in an interesting manner from a true story. The article uses an unconventional way of illustrating supply and demand as it uses women and men to represent the supply and demand. True enough, this supports the economic concept of demand and supply whereby when demand is more than the available supply, the price tends to increase, vice versa.
The link below is about a video that explains further explains supply and demand through the supply and demand graph illustrations. Enjoy! :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op70yS_7du8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op70yS_7du8