China has upset its young female population by labelling those who fail to marry by the time they are 27 as ‘left over woman’.

   Growing number of educated, professional, urban females aged 27-30 have ‘failed’ to find a husband.

  ‘Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family. But girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult,’ reads one article titled ‘Leftover Women Do Not Deserve Our Sympathy’.

  The derogatory name has caused an outcry among millions of ambitious young and educated females who claim they have been thrown on the scrap heap - and who bemoan the low quality of suitors.

  And census figures show that around one in five women aged 25-29 is unmarried.

  The proportion of unmarried males that age is over a third higher - but Chinese men tend to ‘marry down’ both in terms of age and educational attainment.

  ‘There is an opinion that A-quality guys will find B-quality women, B-quality guys will find C-quality women, and C-quality men will find D-quality women,’ Huang Yuanyuan, a confident and single 29-year-old who works in a Beijing radio station, told the BBC.

  ‘The people left are A-quality women and D-quality men,’ she said.

  But the Chinese Bridget Joneses are fighting back, demanding the government ban the ‘left over women’ term.

  The All-China Federation of Women has recently dropped the label and now refers to 'old' unmarried women - but the left over expression remains widely used elsewhere.

  中国将27岁还没嫁出去的女孩称作“剩女”，这一称号让这一女性群体很是沮丧。

  在城市里，越来越多受过良好教育的职业女性已经年过27，即将步入而立之年，却还未能找到另一半。

  一篇题为《剩女不值得同情》的文章写道：“漂亮女孩不需要接受高等教育就能嫁入豪门。但这对于长相普通或丑陋的女孩却很难。”

  这一带有贬义的称号引来了数百万受过教育的年轻女性的强烈抗议，这些野心勃勃的女性称她们被扔到了垃圾堆里，悲叹自己的追求者素质太差。

  统计数据显示，年龄在25岁到29岁之间的中国女性有五分之一是未婚。

  这一年龄段的未婚男性比例高出三分之一，但是中国男性一般都会选择年龄和学历都比自己低的人结婚。

  黄圆圆（音译）今年29岁，在北京一家广播电台工作，是个自信的单身女孩。她告诉英国广播公司的记者说：“人们认为，A男（条件最好的男子）会找B女结婚，B男会找C女结婚，C男会找D女结婚。”

  她说：“剩下的是A女（条件最好的女子）和D男（条件最差的男子）。”

  不过，现在中国的布里吉特·琼斯们正在进行反击，要求政府禁止使用“剩女”一词。

  中国妇联近日已经弃用“剩女”一词，改用“大龄未婚女青年”，但是“剩女”一词在其他地方还是被广泛使用。