Keeping single

Wang Qingli, who teaches English at a primary school in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, is among a growing number of young, educated women who opt not to have children.

"Having a child is too costly an option," said the 28-year-old, who moved to the city near Hong Kong after getting her master's degree from a college in Beijing.

She is a longtime advocate of the "FIRE", or financially-independent-retire-early, lifestyle, which requires practitioners to minimize living costs so that they can save up enough to sustain their "low-desire" living after an early retirement.

Wang has over time talked her boyfriend, an architect, into accepting a childless, or DINK marriage, an acronym for double-income-no-kid.

"As China gets richer, we young people today are thinking more about whether we want to get married or have a child, or whether it is necessary, rather than following suit," she said.

China has had more than 600,000 DINK couples in 2004, according to an estimate by the All-China Women's Federation, the latest available figure endorsed by authorities.