Marriages in China decline to lowest numbers since 1986

Beijing: The number of marriages in China has hit a 36-year low with registrations of married couples dropped below eight million in 2021, the lowest since 1986, the latest official data revealed, adding to the concerns of the dwindling low birth rates and declining population which may touch negative growth by 2025.

 Only 7.64 million couples registered to get married across China, the world's most populous nation, in 2021, the lowest since 1986, according to the latest Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Civil Affairs in 2021. Compared to 2020, the number of couples who got married in 2021 dropped by 6.1%. The data showed that the number of marriages fell for the eighth consecutive year.

 Among the married population last year, people aged between 25 and 29 accounted for 35.3%, up 0.4% points from 2020, making it the group with the highest proportion among all age groups to get married for the ninth year in a row.

 Late marriages which have become a trend in China would affect the policy to permit three children which further poses a challenge to the population problem, state-run Global Times quoted Chinese experts as saying. In the past decade, marriage, in general, has been delayed for several years, which means more and more people who are marriageable pushed back their marriages, said Zhai Zhenwu, chairman of the standing council of the China Population Association.

 Zhai warned that late marriage would lead to fewer births, thus affecting the third-child policy.

In June this year a senior health official warned that China's dwindling population will touch negative growth by 2025 and may continue to shrink for more than a century