The number of registered marriages in China dropped 20.5% from the previous year to 6,106,000 in 2024, the lowest since comparable data became available in the late 1970s, despite government efforts to encourage marriage and promote childbirth, official data showed.
The latest figure is the lowest since 1978 when China saw 5,978,000 marriages. No data were available for the following year, but the number had been rising since the 1980s before peaking at around 13.47 million in 2013.
Amid a graying society, China has introduced a set of measures to boost marriage, such as organizing joint weddings for 5,000 couples nationwide last year and establishing a “marriage school.”
But the policies, including subsidies for married couples and expanded housing and other services for parents, have so far proved ineffective, as young Chinese people remain reluctant to marry against a backdrop of an economic slump and shifting values.
At the marriage school in Changsha, Hunan Province, unwed visitors can experience what married life and parenting is like, including changing baby diapers.
However, the facility has reportedly faced online backlash from some, as they believe it promotes traditional gender roles and fuels discrimination against women.
Some social media users said in their posts that they “cannot afford” the costs of raising children and called government policies encouraging marriages “exploitative” of women.
The aging of China has accelerated despite the abolition of its “one-child policy” in 2016. In 2022, its mainland population shrank for the first time in 61 years.
In 2021, China decided to permit married couples to bear a third child, but a baby boom has yet to materialize, with experts citing the heavy financial burden on young couples raising children.
In addition to ending the one-child policy introduced in 1979, China began to gradually raise the retirement age over a 15-year period from January this year, as concerns grow that a rapidly aging population could constrain economic growth. (Kyodo)