"I have a busy working schedule and limited contact with people outside work," said Chen Shun, 26, a newspaper advertiser. "I just can't find the right person."

In the survey of white-collar workers' marriage situations by www.love21cn.msn.com.cn and www.love21cn.com, 50.2 percent of the respondents also attributed their situation to limited opportunities to meet people outside work. Meanwhile, 14.5 percent choose fierce competition and high pressure as the main reasons for being single, according to the survey.

"You know, living in Beijing is not that easy," said Chen Si, a 25-year-old office assistant in a foreign company. "I want to devote myself fully to work for my future development, so I can't be distracted by the relationship thing now."

Zuo Xiaosi, an assistant researcher at Guangdong Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said that in developed areas like southeast China, people are more prone to shun marriage because they have to face a stressful and fast-paced life.

Another reason that young people shun or postpone marriage is the continuously rising cost of it, fueled by swelling housing prices, especially in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the expense of actually throwing a wedding ceremony. It is reported that the average wedding cost in Shanghai this year is around 190,000 yuan, a sharp rise from 50,000 yuan four years ago.

"Chinese attach much importance to the house, thinking that one cannot settle down without one's own house," said Wu Jin. "But except for those coming from a rich family, most young people have to work hard for many years before saving enough money to buy their own home."

Zuo Xiaosi also pointed out that as people become more open-minded, marriage is not the only means to satisfy their needs any more.

"I'm not against or for marriage. I just don't think I need it," said 27-year-old Ding Li, an interior designer. "As an independent person with strong self-consciousness, I'm quite satisfied with where I am now."

"People's ideas have changed with social progress. Marriage is not a must but an option now for quite a number of young people," commented Wang Zhenyu, an expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

To be single or not is a personal choice in a sense; nevertheless the single wave in China has become a social phenomenon that attracts attention from both the general public and scholars.

"It is a worldwide trend rather than a unique phenomenon in China," said Zuo Xiaosi.

As a matter of fact, the trend is quite established in the West, where the number of singles has been surging since the 1960s. Statistics show that 14 percent of people above marital age were single in Britain in 1961 and the figure rose to 27 percent in 1993, climbing further to almost 30 percent in 1995.

The trend gave rise to a new concept called "the single women economy," a term which made its first appearance in The Economist in 2001. Single women who are well paid and aspire to a high quality of life have made substantial contributions to booms in diverse industries including car manufacturing, real estate, tourism and insurance, according to the report. There is no doubt that the same applies to single men, albeit to a lesser degree.

Although the group of single people seems to be expanding worldwide, the situation in China differs from in Western countries. Most singles in China belong to the traditional type who want to get married but can't for various reasons. According to the categorization of American sociologists, only a small number of the singles in Western countries belong to this type. The majority of them are the avant-garde types who have no plan of marriage at all.

The difference may have something to do with the fact that single life is socially accepted in the West while people who remain single still have to face considerable social pressure in China where traditional thinking still prevails.

"It's not necessary for us to panic over the trend," said Zuo Xiaosi. "People should be more tolerant towards those who choose a different lifestyle from theirs." The single wave is a natural stage as society develops, according to Zuo, and one that is likely to disappear over time.