New marriages in China crash to record low, while divorces on the rise

Couples hug each other during a group wedding at the Harbin Ice-Snow World in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on January 6. (Zhang Tao/Xinhua/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Hong Kong — The number of new marriages recorded in China fell to a record low last year, despite sweeping government efforts to encourage young people to tie the knot and have babies to halt demographic decline in the world’s second-largest economy.

Some 6.1 million couples registered their marriages in 2024, a plunge of 20.5 per cent from the previous year, according to data released Saturday by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. It marks a record low since the ministry started releasing the statistics in 1986.

Plummeting marriages – and births – pose a severe challenge to Beijing, as it grapples with the pressure of a shrinking workforce and rapidly aging population on the country’s slowing economy.

The sharp drop in the number of marriages in 2024 resumed the decade-long decline since 2013, after a brief rebound in 2023 following the lifting of stringent Covid restrictions.

Last year’s figure was less than half of the 13 million marriages registered at the peak in 2013.

The data released on Saturday also showed a slight increase in the number of divorces. Last year, nearly 2.6 million couples registered for divorce, an increase of 28,000 from 2023.

China has mandated 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.

China’s population has shrunk for three years in a row despite a slight increase in the birth rate last year.

The working population, classified as those between the ages of 16 and 59, also declined by 6.83 million last year, adding to an ongoing contraction. The population of those over 60, meanwhile, continued to expand, to account for 22 per cent of the total population.

Chinese officials see a direct link between fewer marriages and falling births in the country, where social norms and government regulations make it challenging for unmarried couples to have children.

To reverse the decline, Chinese officials have rolled out a raft of measures, from financial incentives to propaganda campaigns, to nudge young people to tie the knot and have children.

Officials have organized blind dating events, mass weddings, and attempted to curtail the tradition of large “bride price” payments from the groom to his future wife’s family that put marriage out of reach for many poor men in rural areas.

Some local governments have even handed out cash incentives for young couples to get married.

Since 2022, China’s Family Planning Association has launched programs to create a “new-era marriage and childbearing culture,” enrolling dozens of cities to promote the “social value of childbearing” and encouraging young people to get married and give birth at an “appropriate age.”

But so far, these policies have failed to convince Chinese young adults who are grappling with high unemployment, the rising cost of living and the lack of robust social welfare support amid the economic slowdown.

Many are postponing marriage and childbirth – and a growing number of young people even choose to eschew them entirely.

“Life is so exhausting, how could there be the courage to get married? Sigh,” said a top comment on Chinese social platform Weibo on Sunday, in response to news of the record-low marriages.

The decline in both marriages and births is partly due to decades of policies designed to limit China’s population growth, which resulted in fewer young people of marriageable age, according to Chinese officials and sociologists.

In 2015, China announced an end to its decades-long one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children, then increased that to three children in 2021 – but both marriage and birth rates continued to drop.

The stubborn downward trend is also a result of changing attitudes to marriage, especially among young women who are becoming more educated and financially independent.

Faced with widespread workplace discrimination and patriarchal traditions – such as the expectation for women to be responsible for childcare and housework – some women are growing disillusioned with marriage.