(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-19 15:48

But for most people, a wedding is still a heavy burden.

Xu Fei, 24, a Shanghai restaurant cashier, was losing sleep over how to meet expectations of a memorable wedding within a budget.

"My fiance and I couldn't afford an elaborate ceremony, but we wanted it to be as memorable as possible," Xu says.

Their prayers were answered when her fiance's construction company offered to hold a group wedding in May because seven young employees were to marry this year. The cost per couple: just 2,000 yuan.

For China's young men, who are expected to outnumber women by 25 million by 2030 due to a gender imbalance, the rising cost of getting married, including buying a home, has prompted many to give up altogether.

A survey of registered residents by the society and population studies department of Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences found 21 million single people aged over 15 in the province, 32 percent of all adults, up eight percent from 1996, indicating a growing army of bachelors.

The expense of marriage definitely contributes to the increase in bachelors, especially considering the new requirement of housing, according to department deputy director, Zuo Xiaosi.

"A sewing machine, a bicycle and a watch, which used to be three necessities of marriage, cost several months of income in the 1980s, but now an apartment costs at least ten years pay," Zuo said.

Including a home, the average expenditure in cities reached 560,000 yuan, said the Report on China's Marriage Industry Development by the Ministry of Commerce and China's Wedding Expo in 2007.

The report prompted comments on Internet bulletin board systems, including: "I have no choice but to be a bachelor" and "Marrying a computer seems to be much cheaper."

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