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According to a recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 24 million Chinese men will be unable to find wives by 2020 because of the country's gender imbalance. Before the mass migration from the villages to the cities, young men could rely on their parents to find them a wife with the help of the local matchmaker. Nowadays many of those single women have left the village to work in the factories, so the chances of finding a wife are limited. It is particularly difficult for those men left behind in the rural villages, supporting their parents who have a low income and do not own a property.

In some parts of rural China there are several communities with so many single men they have been labelled 'bachelor villages'. The changing social landscape has led to a growth in internet dating whilst those who can afford it - rich men - join bespoke agencies to find them that someone special.

Lucy Ash reports from China on the ways in which both parents and the single men are attempting to make the perfect catch.

(Image: A mass speed dating event in the industrial city of Dongguan in the Pearl River Delta. Men offer girls they like a red rose. If the girl accepts the man is allowed to sit down and talk to her. Â鶹Éç copyright)