By the age of 30, well-educated Chinese men like Yuan Hongfan are expected to be married, with apartment and child.

But the event planner and emcee is one of a growing number of Chinese urbanites in their 20s and 30s who are unable or unwilling to buy a place and increasingly happy to defy parental and societal pressure to settle down early.

After struggling to find a rental apartment in the booming megacity of Guangzhou where he lives, Mr Yuan recently moved into a new kind of ac-commodation designed to meet the needs of this new generation of young Chinese. Co-living spaces — which are like a luxury student hall of residence with rent and utilities rolled into a monthly fee — are springing up in China’s biggest cities, mirroring their initial success in Europe and the US.