Across China’s rapidly urbanizing cities, growing numbers of people are grappling with crippling social isolation – and a new, fast-growing industry has stepped in to meet unmet needs for human connection. What is now being called China’s “loneliness industry” connects paid providers with people craving companionship, from elderly residents living alone to young professionals navigating life in a new city.
Ninety-one-year-old Yang, a widower living on the outskirts of Beijing, embodies the depth of this crisis. After losing her husband years ago, she struggled with glaucoma and failing vision that left her unable to complete simple daily tasks like adjusting her air conditioner. Crippled by loneliness, she even considered requesting voluntary euthanasia once it became legal in China. “Sometimes, if I wanted to talk to someone I’d talk to the TV,” she recalled of her days before finding help.
Teresa Kuan, an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, explains that rising loneliness in China has been amplified by shifting social structures and changing patterns of human interaction. Decades of internal migration have pulled millions of working-age people from rural hometowns to big cities, leaving aging parents behind in empty homes. Young graduates also frequently relocate across the country for work, leaving their existing support networks behind and struggling to build new ones in dense, fast-paced urban environments.
Today, a growing ecosystem of small businesses is working to fill these gaps. For Yang, that help came from Wang Yingwei, a former mobile phone salesman who launched a meal delivery and companionship service for seniors, inspired by his own family’s experience placing his Alzheimer’s-stricken father-in-law in a substandard nursing home. Wang built his business around the idea of letting seniors age in place in their own homes, rather than moving them into institutional care facilities.
Wang and his small team of four deliver hot meals twice a day to clients like Yang, but their work goes far beyond food delivery. They help fix broken shower fixtures, install filtered water systems, adjust air conditioning units, and most importantly, show up regularly to talk and listen. “We see ourselves as community children,” Wang explains. “It means putting yourself in the shoes of older people and carefully considering their needs. The elderly treat us like their children, and we treat them like our own parents.”
His service costs less than half the price of a full-time live-in caregiver, making it accessible to a wide range of seniors. Seventy-five-year-old Zheng Ruizhi, another Beijing-based client whose adult son lives two hours away, calls Wang her “dear boy” and says his regular visits turned her lonely days around. “When you help me out, I don’t have a single worry or fear,” she told him.
Companionship services in China’s loneliness industry extend far beyond elderly clients. Twenty-three-year-old Liu Yanyan works as a “medical escort,” helping people navigate large, confusing city hospitals. Many of her clients are young transplants to Beijing who don’t have family or close friends in the city. In Chinese culture, the unwritten rules of social reciprocity mean young professionals often feel uncomfortable asking colleagues for favors like accompanying them to a doctor’s appointment, so they hire Liu instead. “If they had to go alone, they could feel scared or anxious,” she says. “Having a familiar, friendly face alongside them removes that anxiety.”
In Anhui Province, former soldier Wang Zhoutao runs a mountain climbing companionship business for solo hikers on scenic Huangshan. His clients are often people dealing with work stress, relationship setbacks, or a general feeling of emptiness in their social lives. He recalls one young woman who was ostracized at work and wanted to prove she could complete a tough mountain hike on a sweltering hot day. When she wanted to quit mid-climb, he encouraged her to keep going, and after they reached the summit, she sent him a long message thanking him for helping her rebuild her confidence. “We provide emotional support, like cheering them up, taking their photo or telling jokes,” he says. “It’s really a service based on companionship.”
Kuan notes that paid companionship offers a unique benefit that informal friendships can’t: predictable boundaries. “If there is a companion you have paid for, the relationship is not exactly equal. It is a service relationship, so you don’t have to deal with the unpredictability of a standard relationship,” she explains. “The thing about friendship is that it can be unpredictable. You don’t know when someone might disappoint you. But, in a service relationship, you have a better idea of what to expect.”
While official industry data remains limited, analysts from securities firm Sinolink estimate the loneliness industry will be worth around $7.4 billion by 2025, and it is expected to keep growing as modern lifestyles continue to pull people apart socially. Demand is already high enough that Wang Yingwei is planning to expand his small team to meet growing interest from seniors across Beijing.
For Yang, the service has been life-changing. Now that Wang has helped her with small home repairs and regular visits, her days of talking to the television are over. “It’s good to have someone around when you need it, someone you can share your innermost thoughts with,” she says. “I did struggle with loneliness but that’s been resolved now. I’m quite happy. I can’t lose Yingwei and the others. They’ve all got a good heart.”
In a society where human connection is increasingly scarce across all age groups, what was once an informal act of caring has become a formalized commodity – one that is meeting a critical need for millions of isolated people.