“Female employees mostly work in internal functional departments, and some are show performers,” Huang Lei, a human resources manager at one of the firms, told a local publication. “They have less contact with the outside world; thus we hope to give more leave to them to give them more time and opportunities to be in contact with the opposite sex.” The dating leave announcement comes after a secondary school, also in Hangzhou, last week reportedly introduced a new policy to give single, stressed-out teachers an extra two days off every month of “love leave” to relax and help lift staff morale. Single women in China in their late 20s and early 30s are deemed to be “leftover women,” or shengnu, due to engrained traditional beliefs that women who are not married by then are undesirable. More women in the world’s most populous country are choosing to focus on their careers and are marrying later or simply not marrying at all. Data from the Ministry for Civil Affairs shows there were more than 200 million single adults in China in 2015 and the marriage rate has fallen every year . . . . read more in INDEPENDENT