China's marriage rate will fall to a record low in 2024, despite government efforts to encourage young people to marry and have babies to halt the country's demographic decline.
About 6.1 million couples registered their marriages in 2024, down 20.5 percent from the previous year, according to data released Saturday by China's Ministry of Civil Affairs. The figure is the lowest since the ministry began releasing statistics in 1986.
The low marriage rate continues the trend from the previous decade, when there were only 13 million marriages in 2013. The number of marriages in China recovered in 2023, but fell again when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
The low marriage rate is also in line with China's population which has continued to shrink for three consecutive years. The number of productive age in China between 16-59 years also decreased by 6.83 million in 2024. Meanwhile, the number of people from the elderly age group actually increased by 22 percent.
The Chinese government has even launched a series of policies ranging from financial incentives, mass marriages, limiting the tradition of dowries, to propaganda campaigns to encourage young people to marry.
Since 2022, the China Family Planning Association has also launched a program to create a "marriage culture and give birth to a new era." However, this program has not attracted enough interest from Chinese citizens.
A number of Chinese people choose to postpone marriage due to the ever-increasing cost of living, minimal economic welfare support, a thin job market, and deep-rooted patriarchal culture.
The decline in birth rates, experts say, is also due to China's decades-long mandatory one-child policy.
Meanwhile, data released Saturday also showed a slight increase in China's divorce rate. Last year, nearly 2.6 million couples registered for divorce, up 28,000 from 2023.
China has introduced a 30-day “cooling off” period for people filing for divorce since 2021, despite criticism that it could make it harder for women to leave broken or even abusive marriages.
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