A study by AustraliaSCAN finds that single-person homes in Australia are expected to rise to 31 per cent of households, making this group the largest.

The trend is a reflection of changing attitudes toward marriage and the difficult economic times which make many single people think twice before starting families of their own.

As a result, registered marriages in Australia rose by only 0.9 per cent in 2010 to 121,176 from 120,118 in 2009. The marriage rates, though, is slowly recovering from a record-low of 104,000 in 2001, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.

Even among owners of large homes, more bedrooms are becoming empty although because of the high cost of building a unit, and fewer Aussies are likely to own their own homes outright, the ABS said.

Due to the rising number of single-person households in the country, an Australian Web site is pushing for recipe makers to take this demographic trend in consideration by crafting recipes for one-person homes.

"For too long, recipe book authors and publishers have ignored single people and continued to craft recipes for four to six servings, which some of my single friends find offensive," said Susan Devine, the co-founder of Web site SingleFare.com, which offers free recipes for solo chefs.

Devine pointed out that due to the trend of more complicated recipes, modifying it for single serving is difficult since it goes beyond halving some of the ingredients.

"I found myself giving up and either buying takeaways or freezing portions of large, staple meals because many modified recipes never worked properly and often resulted in wasted, unused ingredients," she added.

Devine, who launched her Web site on Nov. 30 with her daughter Louise Ryan, said the portal also includes recipes for leftover ingredients.

The current feature recipe on her Web site is Miele Salt Crust Salmon with Waldorf Salad, which has as its main ingredients 180 grammes of Atlantic Salmon fillet, 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, 1 golden delicious apple and 3 tablespoons of table salt.