China population: wedding woes see annual unions nearly halved in past decade

Not since 1979 have so few people tied the knot in China

Now deaths outnumber births, people keep having fewer children, and those who do decide to start a family are waiting longer and longer, bucking Chinese cultural norms

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Only 6.83 million couples got married in China last year, marking the ninth straight annual decline. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:00am, 13 Jun 2023Updated: 9:24am, 13 Jun 2023

The number of marriages in China has plunged to the lowest recorded level since the late 1970s, further illustrating the nation’s worsening demographic crisis that includes the first population decline in more than 60 years.

Wedding registrations have now declined for nine straight years, and last year’s 6.83 million newlyweds were almost half as many as in 2013, when a record high 13.47 million couples tied the knot, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The last time so few people got married in China was more than four decades ago, when 6.37 million couples registered to wed in 1979.

However, China still had fewer than a billion residents back then, compared with 1.41 billion in 2022, which means the marriage rate is considerably lower now.

“Young people now pursue a life that revolves around their own personal development and pleasure, instead of a life that revolves around a child,” said Yuan Xin, vice-president of the China Population Association and a professor of demography at Nankai University in Tianjin.