Young people engage in a pillow fight in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, to celebrate Singles Day. Photo: CFP

For Chen Fen, a 28-year-old single woman living in Beijing, this coming Friday is meant to be a fun one. She plans to enjoy a large meal and a movie with some singles she met online, "because," she says, "Friday is our day." She makes a point of this because this coming Friday, November 11, or 11/11, is unofficially Singles Day, or Guanggunjie in Chinese.

These four lonely digits are viewed in China as a symbol for singles, and represent those without a partner. Moreover, the year 2011, which adds two more lonely figures, makes this day the loneliest one in a century. "I am afraid of being by myself on Friday, too depressing," says Chen, who has been single for years and hopes this Singles Day will be her last one.

Growing number of singles

Singles Day is becoming more popular in China with a growing number of people that have yet to find partners.

A survey conducted jointly by the All-China Women's Federation and baihe.com, a matchmaking portal, shows that as of this January, there were more than 180 million unmarried Chinese men and women above the legal age for marriage, 22 for men and 20 for women.

The increase in the number of singles is more visible in large cities. Figures from a recent population census revealed that the number of singles in Beijing and Shanghai has risen tenfold over the past two decades to more than 1 million, a new record.

Lu Jiehua, a professor of sociology at Peking University, told the Global Times, "It is a global trend that more people choose to be single or get married at a later age. Developed countries such as South Korea have experienced a similar decline of the marriage rate."

As to how singles plan to spend their special day, an ongoing survey by weibo.com, a popular microblog site run by Sina, showed that 53 percent of the 8,392 single participants plan to celebrate the day with other singles, while 25 percent dream of finding an ideal mate to end their single days.

Changing view of marriage

 According to Lu, people's attitudes toward love and marriage have been changing due to the rapid development of society in recent years. "For young people, especially those highly educated, true love and mutual respect are not the only prerequisite of a happy marriage," Lu said. "They also ask for material satisfaction due to the increasing cost of living."

Chen, a civil servant at a local government department, listed a series of criteria for choosing Mr. Right.

"He must be a reliable person who shares the same interests as me. Meanwhile, he should have a stable income to afford an apartment in urban Beijing," Chen told the Global Times. "A relationship without money and a house has no future," she said, adding that a good financial standing is the bedrock of happiness.

Zhou Xiaopeng, a senior marriage consultant with the matchmaking portal baihe.com, told the Global Times that under soaring economic pressure young people tend to regard career development as their top priority.

"The widespread idea of putting work before marriage has partly accounted for people marrying later in life in China," Zhou said.

China has witnessed rising ages for marriage in recent years. Statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) show that, out of the total number of marriages registered in 2009, couples aged between 20 and 24 accounted for 37 percent, 10 percent lower than in 2005. Registered weddings between couples aged more than 40 however, increased from 3.9 percent in 2005 to 12.2 percent in 2009.

Wei Minju, a 25-year-old bachelor in Beijing, told the Global Times, "I have no plans to get married until I am 30. I have to concentrate on my career, because women won't marry me if I don't have a certain amount of savings and cannot afford to buy a house."

At the same time modern society offers people a lot of alternatives to marriage, which has made them further reluctant to get hitched, Zhou explained.

Climbing divorce rate

"Aside from changing views on dating and marriage, the rising divorce rate has also caused a declining marriage rate in China," Zhou told the Global Times. The number of divorced couples reached 19.61 million in 2010, up 61.3 percent from 2000, according to statistics released by the MCA.

In the first quarter of this year, a total of 465,000 marriages ended in divorce in China, with an average of 5,000 couples divorcing every day, the statistics show.

According to Zhou Xiaopeng, the high divorce rate has broken many people's dreams of happiness and discourages many from tying the knot. "The trend toward a higher rate of divorce has contributed to a pessimistic view of marriage," Zhou said.

"Being alone may not be ideal but a divorce is much worse," Chen told the Global Times, saying her view is widely held by singles who are around the age many get married.

Gender imbalance

Chinese men may face bigger nuptial difficulties than women however, as their proportion of the population is higher.

Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of sociology at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that the family planning policy and parents' traditional preference for boys has given rise to an imbalanced gender ratio.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the male to female ratio at birth in China is about 119 males to 100 females, the highest in the world.

By 2020 more than 30 million men of legal marrying age in the country may not be able to get married.

"The male-female ratio is far above the world's average of 103-107 boys to 100 girls," said Zhou Xiaozheng, adding that the gender imbalance will cause many social problems in a long term.