2RedBeans
Do Chinese Guys in New York Really Have It Easy? We Ran the Numbers
"Chinese guys in New York are spoiled. They have so many options that nobody's in a hurry to settle down." If you've been single in NYC for more than a couple of years, you've probably heard some version of that at brunch. So we checked it against the census and a full year of anonymized platform data. Here's what we found: among Chinese singles aged 25 to 44, men and women in New York are almost exactly even. Yes, some guys really are getting more attention than they can handle, but they're a small minority. What actually sets New York apart is that only about 30% of New York women's likes go to New York men.
This is the second stop in our regional data series. The first was the Bay Area. Methodology is at the end.
1. How many Chinese people live in New York?
According to the census, the New York metro area is home to about 836,000 Chinese residents, which is more than the Bay Area's 768,000. New York is just enormous, though. With close to 20 million people in the metro, Chinese residents make up only about 4%, or roughly 1 in 24. In the Bay Area it's 1 in 10.
Most of them live in the city itself. The five boroughs hold about 606,000 Chinese residents, 72% of the metro total, which works out to about 1 in 14 New York City residents. By borough:
- Queens: about 259,000, or 11% of the borough. That's close to 1 in 9 people
- Brooklyn: about 197,000
- Manhattan: about 105,000
- Staten Island has about 37,000, and the Bronx has fewer than 10,000
Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan together hold two-thirds of the region's Chinese population. Across the river, New Jersey's 12 commuter counties add about 141,000, led by Middlesex (around 29,000), then Hudson and Bergen (around 24,000 each). Long Island has about 69,000.
2. Singles: dead even, and Manhattan actually skews female
Among unmarried Chinese adults aged 25 to 44 in the New York metro, there are about 59,000 men and 60,000 women, or 99 men for every 100 women. The Bay Area figure on the same measure is 121. New York has plenty of single guys.
The differences show up when you split the region by which side of the river you're on: Manhattan is at 90, New Jersey at 116, Queens at 101, and Brooklyn at 94. If you apply the usual "he's a couple of years older" expectation, Manhattan falls to 78.
Single Chinese women in Manhattan stand out in one more way. 45% of them have a graduate degree, compared with 32% of the men, and incomes are about the same on both sides. If everyone defaults to "someone with at least my level of education," Manhattan women start with a smaller pool. That's a structural problem. It doesn't mean anyone is "too picky."
3. 45 is where things change
If you look at every age, the census counts about 121,000 single Chinese men and 161,000 single Chinese women aged 18 and up in the New York metro. That's just 75 men for every 100 women, or roughly 41,000 more single women than men. The Bay Area figure on the same measure is 84.
Nearly all of that gap comes after 45:
| Age | Single men | Single women | Men per 100 women |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18–24 | 28,400 | 31,900 | 89 |
| 25–29 | 22,000 | 24,900 | 88 |
| 30–34 | 19,300 | 16,600 | 116 |
| 35–39 | 11,100 | 10,200 | 109 |
| 40–44 | 6,800 | 8,100 | 84 |
| 45–49 | 5,300 | 7,500 | 71 |
| 50–54 | 5,900 | 8,600 | 68 |
| 55–64 | 8,900 | 16,000 | 56 |
| 65+ | 13,000 | 37,500 | 35 |
| Total (18+) | 120,600 | 161,300 | 75 |
New York doesn't follow the Bay Area's pattern of men outnumbering women at every age under 45. Women have a slight edge in their twenties, men pull ahead in their early thirties, and women lead again at 40–44. After 45, the ratio keeps falling until it hits 35 among people 65 and older. If you count only people who have never married, the ratio for ages 45 to 64 is somewhere between 86 and 111, so there isn't a clear surplus of women. In other words, the extra single women after 45 are mostly divorced or widowed.
4. New York guys get less attention than guys in the Bay Area or LA
On 2RedBeans, active members aged 25 to 44 in New York run 160 men for every 100 women, which is far more male-heavy than the census. That's true in every city we looked at, because the people on a dating app are the ones actively looking, not the whole population.
In that market, the average New York man gets about 1.1x the likes of the average man on the platform. In the Bay Area and LA, it's about 1.3x. Of the three biggest markets, New York men come in last. Taken as a group, New York guys aren't being spoiled at all.
5. The "spoiled" ones are the top 20%
So where does the "spoiled" reputation come from? It comes from how the attention is distributed.
On 2RedBeans, the most popular 20% of New York men collect 70% of all the likes New York men receive. The bottom half combined get about 6%. For comparison, if everyone had the same odds of being liked, the top 20% would get around a quarter. The figure is 64% in the Bay Area and LA, and for women it hovers around 50% in every city. Among major North American cities, New York has the most top-heavy attention.
That means both complaints are true. There really is a small group of New York guys who are swimming in attention and never short on options. If those are the men you keep running into, it makes perfect sense to assume New York guys are spoiled. For the other 80% of New York men, though, the reality sounds a lot more like the other complaint: "You can't find a girlfriend in this city either."
It also turns out New York guys aren't any pickier. When a New York woman likes a New York man, he likes her back about 7.2% of the time. That's close to LA (8.0%) and the Bay Area (7.5%).
6. What actually sets New York apart: women's likes are heading west
There's a running joke in Chinese American circles that East Coast women have to fly west to find someone. With the Bay Area at 121 single men per 100 single women, it sounds plausible. According to the platform data, it's definitely happening online.
New York women aren't any stingier with likes than women in the Bay Area or LA. They send about the same number per person. The difference is who gets them: only 30% of New York women's likes go to New York men, compared with 45% for women in the Bay Area and LA.
So where does the rest go? More than a third heads to the West Coast: 19% to LA and 16% to the Bay Area. Almost nothing comes back the other way. Only 6% of Bay Area women's likes and 7% of LA women's likes go to New York. The West Coast is the platform's largest member pool, and New York men send 28% of their likes there too. But New York women look west a lot more, and they keep far fewer likes local. New York men send half of theirs to New York women.
Here's what that adds up to: on 2RedBeans, the average New York woman gets about 60% as many local mutual likes as a woman in the Bay Area or LA, and the average New York man gets just over half as many as a Bay Area man.
Are these women actually planning to move, or does someone 3,000 miles away just look better on a screen? Platform data can show us what's happening, but it can't tell us why. What it does explain is why both men and women find dating in New York so hard. Women keep seeing the in-demand 20%. Men are mostly in the other 80%. And a big chunk of local women's attention isn't on the city at all. Both groups are right. They're describing two sides of the same market.
Methodology
- Census: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS) 2020–2024 5-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). "Chinese" means Chinese alone. "Unmarried" includes never married, divorced, separated, and widowed. The New York metro area = the five boroughs of New York City; Long Island (Nassau, Suffolk); Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties; and 12 New Jersey counties (Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union, Hunterdon, Ocean). The "he's two years older" ratio = unmarried men aged 27–46 ÷ unmarried women aged 25–44. It's an illustrative adjustment, not an official statistic. The census measures marital status, not whether someone is dating.
- 2RedBeans platform data: Active members = real, visible members who have been active in the past 90 days and have a photo and birthday on their profile. Likes and mutual likes cover the 12 months ending October 2026. Metro areas are defined as within 80 km (about 50 miles) of the city center. Like-back rate = the share of likes that get returned. Concentration = the share of a group's total likes received by its most popular 20%. The "equal odds" benchmark comes from a random simulation using the same average number of likes per person. Local mutual likes per person = mutual likes between men and women in the same metro ÷ active members of that gender in the metro, indexed to the Bay Area. Only opposite-sex interactions between real accounts are counted. This article reports only ratios and percentages.
If your profile keeps getting views but no responses, a second pair of eyes can help. 2RedBeans' Profile Concierge pairs you with a senior dating consultant who works with you one-on-one on your photos, your bio, and how you present yourself. If you'd rather jump in and start meeting Chinese singles in New York, start with New York Chinese Singles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How many Chinese people live in New York?
According to the American Community Survey (ACS 2020–2024), the New York metro area (the five boroughs, Long Island, Westchester and two neighboring counties, and 12 New Jersey counties) has about 836,000 Chinese residents, or about 4% of the population. About 72% of them live in New York City: roughly 259,000 in Queens, 197,000 in Brooklyn, and 105,000 in Manhattan. Among adults 18 and over, there are about 121,000 single Chinese men and 161,000 single Chinese women.
Q: What's the gender ratio among single Chinese people in New York?
According to the American Community Survey (ACS 2020–2024), unmarried Chinese adults aged 25 to 44 in the New York metro include about 59,000 men and 60,000 women, or about 99 men for every 100 women, which is basically even. By area, Manhattan is at about 90 and the 12 New Jersey counties are at about 116.
Q: On dating apps, do Chinese guys in New York really have it easy?
According to 2RedBeans platform data, only a handful are—not New York men as a whole. The average New York man gets about 1.1x the likes of the average man on the platform, the lowest of the three biggest markets (New York, the Bay Area, and LA). But the most popular 20% of New York men receive 70% of all the likes going to New York men, while the bottom half share about 6%.
Q: On dating apps, why is it so hard for Chinese singles in New York to match?
According to 2RedBeans platform data, New York women send only 30% of their likes to local New York men, compared with 45% in the Bay Area and LA. As a result, the average New York woman gets only about 60% as many local mutual likes as a woman in the Bay Area or LA, and the average New York man gets just over half as many as a Bay Area man. Platform data reflects people who are actively dating online, not the whole population.
Q: Is it true that East Coast women look to the West Coast to find a partner?
According to 2RedBeans platform data, online it is. More than a third of New York women's likes go to men in LA (19%) and the Bay Area (16%), while only 6% to 7% of likes from Bay Area and LA women go to New York. Platform data only shows where likes go online. It doesn't tell us how many people actually move.
Cover photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Pexels