China’s new marriages dropped to an almost 40-year low in 2022, increasing the likelihood that the population of the world’s second-largest economy will continue to fall.
(Bloomberg) — China’s new marriages dropped to an almost 40-year low in 2022, increasing the likelihood that the population of the world’s second-largest economy will continue to fall.
About 6.8 million couples registered marriages in China last year, down 11% from 2021 and the lowest number since 1985, when available government data begins. The data shows the number of unions peaked in 2013 and has since rapidly declined.
China’s economy faces pressure as people grow older and births fall. The drop in marriages is likely attributable to a decline in the number of young people, as well as couples choosing to get married later, changing attitudes toward marriage, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021, the number of people age 20-34 fell below 300 million for the first time since the mid-1980s, and there were more than 10 million more men than women in that age cohort, according to data from the United Nations. That gender imbalance could make it even harder to get married, especially as same-sex marriage isn’t legal in China.
The average age of a first marriage in 2020 was almost 29, up almost four years from in 2010, local media Yicai reported over the weekend, citing national census data.
Falling Population and Births
The decline in the number of younger people is at least partially a result of China’s one-child policy, which lasted from the 1980s to 2016. The population shrank last year for the first time in six decades, a trend that’s expected to continue as people age and delay marriage and children, or don’t get married at all.
Some 9.56 million babies were born in 2022, down from 10.62 million a year earlier and the lowest level since at least 1950, despite recent efforts by the government to encourage families to have more children. The plummeting number of new marriages now will likely cause that decline in births to continue in the years ahead as most of the babies in China are still born inside marriage.
(Updates with details on the average age of marriages in 2020. A chart in a previous version of this story was corrected to show China has more men than women.)
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