The I who now sits alone at the dining table

The Chinese internet company Taobao says that on Nov 11 its sales of pet products more than doubled from last year. On JD.com, China's equivalent of Amazon, the pet category ranked fifth in the growth of transactions on Nov 11 compared with last year, and sales in the first 40 minutes surpassed that of the entire day last year.

"The pet economy is essentially a typical solo economy or emotional economy," says Guo Xin, a marketing professor at Beijing Technology and Business University.

"The way young people feed their pets reflects their pursuit of individuality, their attempts to dispel loneliness and escape complexity, and their desire for love."

Behind all this is a desire to be alone but at the same time not to be lonely and to want companionship, he said.

The White Paper on China's Pet Industry last year said there were nearly 100 million dogs and cats in the country and that the urban pet dog and cat consumption market was worth 202 billion yuan, 18.5 percent more than in the previous year.

The influx of freshly minted graduates into big cities across the country has contributed to these figures.

Zhang Xinfu, who works for Chongfuxin, a pet hospital chain in Beijing, says that in recent years more and more young people have been willing to spend a lot of money for routine checkups for their animals. Last year China's per capita annual spending on a pet dog was 6,082 yuan and on a pet cat 4,755 yuan, the paper said.

Guo, the marketing professor, said: "Changes in pet raising and the phenomenon of diners in which people eat alone reflect emotional needs as families become smaller and their structure becomes more complex, against a backdrop of mass migration across the country.

"These things are also the natural emotional outcome of people surviving in the workplace and dealing with the pressures of life as urbanization continues.

"As the spaces between groups shrink and the quality of people's lives improve, people's spiritual needs escalate, and pets are expected to supply strong emotional sustenance."

The burgeoning solo economy is being given impetus by online consumption that is diversifying demand produced by changes in China's economic and social structure, especially the transformation of lifestyles, he says.