Negotiating Agency and Expectations through Cohabitation: Dynamics of Elderly Matchmaking and Later-Life Romance in Urban China

This paper explores the formation and gender dynamics of cohabitation as a "peer-ageing" strategy in urban China, emphasizing the emotional and practical significance of companionship in later-life partnerships. Drawing on fieldwork data collected in Beijing 2023, including interviews, participant observation at matchmaking corners, and visual data, it investigates how older singles seeking cohabitation partners present themselves in public settings and how they interact, communicate, and negotiate their expectations for romance and care. The paper begins by introducing the history and development of matchmaking corners (Xiangqin Jiao) in the parks of modern Chinese cities, then moves to analyze the “E-Corner,” where WeChat groups—created through social networks established in the parks and managed by matchmakers—facilitate online interactions for older cohabitation seekers. It also explores matchmakers' evolving role and power dynamics, both in physical spaces and online, in shaping these relationships. Moreover, the emergence of dancing, singing, and acting corners within the matchmaking space reflects older people's agency in transforming public spaces to serve creative purposes. I also analyzed 237 dating profiles (those printed CVs that older people bring and present in the park) and examined how a social support network forms unintentionally in the name of “partner-seeking”. Nevertheless, contrasting with socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), which suggests that older individuals focus on emotionally meaningful goals as they age, this paper highlights a different perspective among elderly singles in Chinese matchmaking parks negotiating care through public matchmaking spaces. Rather than solely prioritising emotional fulfilment, many older individuals are driven by pragmatic and materialistic motivations rooted in concerns about livelihood insecurity. The paper analyzes how older men and women navigate their agency and expectations in the initial stages of cohabitation while dealing with the contradiction between their optimism and the intersection of gendered expectations, social pressures, and economic anxieties in contemporary China.