HONG KONG: Marriages in China plummeted by a fifth last year, the biggest drop on record, despite manifold efforts by authorities to encourage young couples to wed and have children to boost the country’s declining population.
Declining interest in getting married and starting a family has long been blamed on the high cost of childcare and education in China. On top of that, sputtering economic growth over the past few years has made it difficult for university graduates to find work and those that do have jobs feel insecure about their long-term prospects.
More than 6.1 million couples registered for marriage last year, down from 7.68 million a year earlier, figures from the Ministry of Civil Affairs showed.
“Unprecedented! Even in 2020, due to COVID-19, marriages only decreased by 12.2 per cent,” said Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He noted that the number of marriages in China last year was less than half of the 13.47 million in 2013.
If this trend continues, “the Chinese government’s political and economic ambitions will be ruined by its demographic Achilles’ heel”, he added.
For Chinese authorities, boosting interest in marriage and baby-making is a pressing concern.
China has the second-biggest population in the world at 1.4 billion – one that is aging quickly.
