Companies Offer ‘Dating Leave’ To Single Female Employees Over 30 Years Old

Female? Single? Over 30 years old? Good news, single ladies, two companies in China are offering their female employees with a “dating leave”.

The two companies in Zhejiang, China, namely the Hangzhou Songcheng Performance and Hangzhou Songcheng Tourism Management, urge their single employees to go out and mingle, by offering them with extra eight days of leave on top of their seven-day Lunar New Year break.

Chinese single ladies are offered a dating leave.

The companies announced their new rule on January 21, taking after one other company, the Dinglan Experimental Middle School which granted a “love leave: to its single and childless teachers on January 15.

The two companies spearhead and manage the Song Dynasty Town, a famous tourist spot near West Lake in Hangzhou, Zheijiang province. It’s the biggest park of its kind in the country, allowing tourists to experience what it’s like to live 1,000 years ago as they wear traditional robes.

To become eligible, the employee should be a female, unmarried, over 30 years old, and in non-frontline roles.

Plus, they have the option to extend the dating leave.

Why is this so? Women over 30 in China are regarded as “leftover women”, which means that those who remain unmarried during their mid-twenties to thirties are less desirable to men. Hence, they need to step up and look for someone before their time runs out.

Also, with the high demand from women to focus on their careers, many marry late in life while others do not marry at all. Today, about 200 million are single adults in 2015 and the marriage rate has decreased dramatically each year since 2013.

Of course, the additional leave received positive feedback and enthusiasm from the employees. Now they have some extra time to date, mingle, meet new friends, or even just focus on themselves.