Survey: Young, alone, no house and not much sex

While most watchers of Chinese society are focusing their attention on the aging population, some have turned their eyes in another direction, to an emerging group in big cities - younger men and women who live alone. Reports say there are 50 million of them. If they were a province, it would be the 11th-most populated.

Observers even created a term for this group in Chinese - kongchaoqingnian - literally "young empty-nester".

Kongchao, or empty-nest, has been used mainly in reference to parents whose children are gone. But thanks to the media's wordplay, young empty-nesters include those from 20 to 39 years old who work far from their hometown and eat and sleep on their own.