BEIJING: It’s not hard to find videos on China’s social media showing young people being encouraged or even pressured by their parents to get married. The exaggerated reactions of parents to their offspring’s reluctance to go on blind dates or failure to bring home a girlfriend or boyfriend often provoke laughter.
But with the average age of the country’s population on a continuing upward trend, some people aren’t laughing when it comes to whether young adults are becoming more and more disinclined to tie the knot.
A report released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in August marked a new low in enthusiasm for marriage. The report shows that the number of couples registered to get married in China last year, after eight years of steady decline, hit fewer than 8 million, also the lowest in 36 years. Tang Mengjun, a researcher with China Population and Development Research Center, said the decline is a result of a combination of factors, including the reduction of the marriage-age population due to a drop in birth rates, a decrease in their willingness to get married and a tendency to postpone marriage. Postponement shows up in the shift of the average age of first marriages. That age climbed to over 28 in 2020, according to the China Population Census Yearbook 2020, released this year.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
