Well-educated, Chinese singletons in their late-20s or older - branded 'leftover women' by a chauvinistic society - are looking further afield for husbands who aren't turned off by their age or earning power.

Highly accomplished women are not only the target of harsh media scrutiny, they also face a severe lack of admirers, despite China having 34 million more men than women as of last year. A recent study by Hong Kong-based sociologist Sandy To Sin-chi shows that these women struggle to find a lasting relationship in what is a conservative, patriarchal society. Men continue to "undermarry" in terms of education, accomplishments and age, leaving the most successful women on the shelf.

"My mum spends all her time organising blind dates for me," says Faye Yang, a pretty 29-year-old university professor, "but over 60 per cent of them reject me when they discover I have a PhD degree."

To studied 50 leftover women and found them increasingly likely to choose Western men, "who are generally believed to be more open-minded and egalitarian in terms of gender roles".

"Before I would never consider dating a foreigner because of cultural barriers," says Xu, "but now I think it's far more likely that Western men will share the same values and allow me more freedom."

Numbers are swelling at Shanghai's Yali Marriage Quotient Club, where women pay anywhere from 2,800 yuan to 40,000 yuan for classes specialising in how to bag an "elite foreign man".