BEIJING: There was a sizable uptick in the number of new marriages registered last year in China after nine straight years of decline, amid concerns about falling birthrates and a growing aging population. Demographers said the rebound was due to a mix of factors, including the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and a culture-driven desire to tie the knot in an auspicious year.
Last year, 7.68 million couples registered their marriages in China, up 845,000 or more than 12 percent year-on-year, according to a closely watched quarterly report published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on Friday on its website.
New marriage registrations had been falling nationwide since it peaked at 13.47 million in 2013, according to official figures. The number dipped below 10 million in 2019 and started decreasing by about 1 million each year, reaching just 6.83 million by the end of 2022.
The latest figure has surpassed the 7.64 million registrations in 2021 and has struck many as unexpected.
The hashtag “Marriage registrations have picked up for the first time in a decade” has been viewed more than 150 million times on the microblogging site Sina Weibo as of Monday, and amassed thousands of comments.
Dong Yuzheng, a demographer from Guangdong province, said the surge is attributable to the delays caused by COVID-19 disruptions, which gradually eased early last year. During the worst of the outbreaks, gatherings like those for wedding celebrations were discouraged to curb the spread of the highly contagious disease. The researcher said that pandemic-induced disruptions had also affected in-person dating before marriages, and caused inordinate delays.
Despite the surging numbers recorded last year, Dong said he believed the resurgence would not last. “The increase is a temporary phenomenon,” he said in an interview with the financial news magazine Yicai.
The upsurge in the number of people getting married is reflected in the sale of precious metals. A white paper published this month by China Wedding Expo showed that wedding-related spending on gold and jewelry remained strong, though spending on wedding banquets dropped by 10 to 15 percent last year. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
