China's single women - are they the source of its future?

Forty years ago in China, marriage was universal, compulsory and a woman's only means to a livelihood. Then the one-child policy resulted in China's first generations of urban only-daughters girls who were pushed to study, achieve and succeed as if they were sons. Now, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage or not marry at all to spawn a label: 'leftovers'. They struggle to find partners in a society where gender roles have not evolved as vigorously as the society itself.

Part critique of China s paternalistic ideals, part playful portrait of the romantic travails of China s trailblazing women, Leftover in China employs colourful anecdotes, hundreds of interviews and rigorous historical and demographic research to show how the leftovers are the linchpin to China's future.

Roseann Lake is the Economist's Cuba correspondent. She was previously based in Beijing, where she worked for five years as a television reporter and journalist. Her China coverage has appeared in Foreign Policy, Time, The Atlantic, Salon, and Vice, among others. She lives in New York City and Havana, Cuba.