EACH year, on Nov 11, the Chinese celebrate Singles Day — a tongue-in-cheek counterpoint to Valentine’s Day and its glorification of coupledom. The students who came up with it chose 11/11 as the date because it looks like a bunch of sticks — single people in Chinese slang. In commercial terms, the holiday grosses over $200 billion in consumer spending as there are special sales and products created to celebrate single people. This number is greater than Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday sales in the US combined.

It makes sense for the Chinese to celebrate the day. The one-child policy that was in effect in China between 1979 and 2015 triggered sex-selective abortions — parents preferred to have boys. This contributed to skewed population numbers, with more males than females. In addition, increasing opportunities for women mean that millions have no interest in choosing a traditional marriage. The number of people celebrating Singles Day also reveals how economically powerful these women are. The trend extends beyond China. In South Korea, for instance, 36 per cent of all households are now single-person households.

The rise of ‘singledom’ is not limited to East Asia. In Iran, marriage rates have been........

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