Rising 'sugar baby' trends spark ethical questions

I was recently surveyed as a participant in a research project studying Vietnamese young adults' attitudes towards dating and marriage.

Taking part in the project I realized that far more young people than I'd previously imagined want to enter romantic relationships as a "sugar baby."

The term describes a role usually for young and attractive people who join relationships on a transactional basis for the purpose of financial security. A staggering amount of young people nowadays see this as a perfect solution to their "adulthood issues."

This mindset focuses on what its adherents believe to be the most pragmatic approaches to – and solutions for – dating and cohabitation. In such relationships, sugar babies need to provide emotionally, while their partner must provide financially – both to an extreme extent.

This recent ideological surge appears to have started in mainland China.

In a video published by an online social media named "Ta" on Douyin, the mainland China equivalent of TikTok, in February 2022, a post read:

"To men, marriages help solve all future problems. If a man is successful in his career, he just needs to find a woman willing to get married. To women, marriages also help satisfy their needs. If a woman marries a man with a house, she does not have to worry about buying a house anymore. If she marries a man with a car, she does not have to buy a car anymore."

After only a few days, the video peaked as the most-viewed video in Douyin’s marriage column, and it remains so until now. The video now has over six million views, around 200,000 likes, 100,000 shares and 21,000 comments. While many people criticized the author's extreme pragmatism and cold practicality, a large number of people supported the poster's viewpoint.

Pragmatism in marriage is not something new to the younger generations in China. In a 2019 survey, 81.6% females born after 1995 expressed their wish that their future spouse own real estate property before marriage. Similarly, 40% of respondents said that they wanted their partner to have a minimum monthly income of CNY10,000 ($1,380), which is 150% higher than the national average.

The phenomenon is not limited to females. Young males also want to be or become sugar babies. Some 90.7% of males born after 1995 have said they were ready to marry older females. And 59.3% of male respondents were ready to marry partners who were older than them by five years or more.

Similar research by the U.S.-based Stanford University in 2023 showed that in China, single men who own houses have a 70% higher success rate proposing for marriage compared to their landless peers.

With the surge of social media networks over the last two decades, especially TikTok, Vietnamese sugar baby culture has trended ever upward, and the practice among young people has become increasingly prevalent in Vietnam. Popular taglines now include "I just want to be a baby" and "Forever baby," which, although now prominent on social media, would have been considered shocking self-identifiers by mainstream culture in the 90s. Videos following these trends now attract some of the highest numbers of viewers for cultural channels on TikTok in Vietnam.

According to official TikTok data in Vietnam, in July 2024, the keyword "nuong chieu" (indulgence) attracted 159 relevant videos, with over 145 million views. Each of these videos attract approximately 918,000 views from TikTok users, which can be life-changing statistics for some TikTok accounts.

The same keyword had 226 new posts on Facebook, according to Reputa, an AI-powered market monitoring tool.

This trend has had both positive and negative impacts on the mindsets of younger generations in Vietnam.

On the bright side, such self-affirming social media content helps young people better understand both their rights and responsibilities as partners in matrimony. Wishing to have the secure financial and mental support from a partner is, first and foremost, a well-founded and legitimate wish, especially for women, who still are less privileged than men in many societies.

In Vietnam and other Asian countries, women face far more difficulties building careers than men, especially after marriage. They must divide their time between work and family, and between striving professionally and caring for their husbands and children, in ways that are often not expected of men. Men can still be considered good family men – fathers, sons and husbands – while spending all day – morning thru night – at work, on business trips, or taking meetings over beer to further their careers. So long as everything is paid for and they come home to kiss their sleeping kids goodnight, he is a success. Woman cannot operate this way without meeting regular disapproval from almost all directions: friends, family, neighbors, work, and media.

Women's need for understanding and sharing, both before and after marriage, is also higher than their counterparts, as they typically are more sensitive than their partners. According to research by the Institute on Aging, University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S., "female brains are more sensitive to factors that were caused by stress and lack of control."

And social media does not exclusively share positive and empowering content about or for women and females, or even necessarily a majority or plurality of such messages. In many videos, young women expose most of their bodies and use vulgar language to tempt affluent men, which appears to be an open transaction, trading their bodies for wealth. The dissemination of such content could one day fundamentally change the mindset of young adults. More girls will look to "sell" their bodies this way, instead of seeking education and work.

Relationships between young attractive females and older wealthy boyfriends sometimes lie in society’s ethical grey zones. While it is not easy to monitor and regulate such relationships with legal means, such behaviors lie dangerously close to illegal activities. They can often look like "undercover" prostitution.

The needs for financial security along with emotional connections are both legitimate needs of relationships and individuals. However, we should strive to remain vigilant about, and critical of, the freely fluctuating traits of our society. Outside of our families, no one will ever give us anything for free. To have a sustainable relationship, both sides need to make certain sacrifices.

We wish to be protected and cared for in a relationship, but we should not be entirely dependent: not on our partners and not on anyone else but ourselves.

*Bui Huu Manh is an analyst and market researcher.