Late shifts, demanding work keep media professionals out of dating

When joking about their daily routines, journalists sometimes say that they "wake as early as a rooster and go to bed as late as a dog".

Now they have another reason to poke fun at themselves: being single.

A recent report by matchmaking website zhenai.com revealed that journalism is the most single occupation in China.

According to the report, 4.8 percent of media professionals are single, the highest among all occupations.

Zou Yuqing, a publicity official of the website, said on Monday that the report was based on its annual survey of the single population. About 10,000 of its members were surveyed.

According to the China Population Employment Statistics Yearbook 2010, single Chinese men and women aged 18 to 43 numbered nearly 180 million in 2011, and 60 million of them lived in urban areas.

When asked why they remain single, 50.9 percent of the respondents blamed their small social circles, while 24.5 percent said they don’t know how to get along with people of the opposite sex.

Some media workers interviewed by China Daily said that low salaries and tight working schedules leave no time for dating.

Zhang Deng, 30, who works for a media website in Beijing, said professionals in the media industry, especially those working for websites, make low wages.

A low salary causes a lot of problems, including difficulties in buying an apartment or setting up a new family, he said.

Another reason so many media workers are single is that they have to work overtime and sometimes holidays or weekends to follow the news.

Zhang said that the night shift, a common schedule in newsrooms, was the cause of a high divorce rate among workers at a news website where he used to work.

Zeng Nai, 24, a reporter with a news agency in Beijing, said that media professionals have a hard time on the dating circuit because they don’t have a fixed schedule and have to travel frequently for interviews.

It’s even more difficult for those in TV news because they have to work late, Zeng said.

Moreover, some media workers have little time for a social life.

"Due to the high demands of the job, media workers tend to spend a lot of time on the Internet following the news. A lot of media workers prefer to live in a cyber world," said Zhang.

Sometimes, they get a break from work in the daytime, but it does no good for dating because others are working a normal 9-to-5 schedule, Zhang said.