Summary
China’s marriage rate hit a record low in 2024, with only 6.1 million marriages, a 20% drop from 2023 and the lowest since records began in 1986.
Rising costs, youth unemployment, changing gender roles, and a growing preference for single life contribute to the trend. Government incentives to boost marriage and birth rates have largely failed.
Social attitudes are shifting, with less family pressure to marry, skepticism over restrictive divorce laws, and calls for same-sex marriage recognition.
Experts warn this decline could accelerate China’s demographic and economic challenges.
Good, weddings are a stupid human invention.
Maybe people should look into human trafficking into “bride” by Chinese with unfortunate women from neighbouring countries.
Even after giving birth to male child, some women are sold to next man in line. Quite a fuckery ignored by CCP.
There was this experiment with a rat city that showed behavioral changes in large populations. Coupled with lack of child and aged care in China, completely unsurprising that this would happen.
Additionally, when you have digital boyfriends like Love and Deepspace, who can blame the ladies for wanting something low effort and convenient?
Experts warn this decline could accelerate China’s demographic and economic challenges.
I’ll say it again. The labor market is a market.
Lower supply ==> higher price.
In the context of the labor market: Fewer workers ==> higher wages. That is good for the workers.
Old people is where that gets messy. But it’s absolutely true
Old people is where that gets messy
… as long as you assume that retirement has to be paid for by the worker’s taxes.
Rich taxes would solve the problem well enough, i think.
So so. It still takes a worker out of the market for their care. Which from above is established to be at a premium.
Many commenters also cited the controversial introduction of a divorce cooling-off period in 2021, making them wary of the “easy entry and strict exit” for marriage.
I had missed the introduction of this in 2021.
“The law requires couples who are mutually seeking a divorce to wait for 30 days before formalising it. If the couples don’t show up for two appointments between 30 and 60 days after applying, their application is automatically cancelled.”
“In February Chinese media reported fully booked appointment slots in Shenzhen, Shanghai and other cities, with some being sold by scalpers.”
That would certainly be a disincentive to get married if you could not get out of it if you needed to.
They reward increasing the number of people who are formally married, rather than the number of stable couples.
Such a wonderful example of misaligned incentives, only a politician could come up with it.In the great state of Wisconsin, there is a 120 day waiting period after filing and paying the Clerk of the Circuit Court. After the 120 days then you can obtain a date for a final court hearing before it becomes legally accepted
So it could be much worse. It could be Wisconsin
Does Wisconsin require showing up for two or more “appointments” during those 120 days?
Yea from what I can tell, it’s the same but worse
First before you even have the wait period you must go to court in order to file for the waiting period to begin. Additionally you have to pay a fee to even begin the wait process
After the 120 days is up, you have a period of time to gather docs and obtain a court date for the final hearing. Failing to prepare during this period or engage the court for the final hearing will likely restart the entire process including waiting another 120 days and having to file and pay the fee with the Circuit Court
I honestly can’t tell from the article what “appointment” means but it sure seems synonymous with us having to go to court multiple times to initiate the process and conclude it
If I replace court appearances with appointment to align with the article. Then in WI you have a bare minimum of two appointments. If you have kids or need petitions for support to go through with the motion. You can have up to four appointments. Not acknowledging you may be forced to complete parenting courses before the final hearing is allowed to occur
Any system is bad when scalping becomes a thing.
There are some rumours about this. A lot of women and their families expect the husband to have a car, house, well paying job and paying a five figure (in USD) bridal price, while preferably be below 30 years. With the economy as it is, few men qualify. It’s also expected from a lot of men to give his complete wage to the wife. Government goes along with that, and flavors the women in a divorce. Turns out a lot of guys just say f this, and don’t get married anymore.
The men are also very picky. Women outnumber men, but they are also looking for a certain age, body type, and background. People are even buying/kidnapping little girls to raise as brides for their sons so they can mold them versus just finding a bride. Half of the time, they don’t want the women available. They’re too old, too fat, too ugly, divorced, have kids, outspoken, and all the other things that they’ve been conditioned to dislike. Also, a lot of women have rough married lives over there.
Women also belong to the groom’s family in a way. If you “only” have a daughter, you really have one shot (and a clicking clock) for both you and her to pick the “best” family. Society has made it to where a woman is expected to serve her household and handle whatever they throw at her, but then punish them for wanting to pick the cage they’re locking themselves into. Like, yeah, if it’s super hard to get divorced, let alone marry again, and the man/family I’m marrying has a lot of power over me, and I’ll be under the households thumb, I’m going to at least make sure I’m take care of. If their society was more equal, I think they’d be able to marry more for love/desire/want than security. But women over there don’t get a lot of agency so they take it where they can.
Bith sides are saying “fuck it.” Men don’t want to be wage slaves and women don’t want to be indentured bang maids.
So neither men nor women want to get married under the currebt circumstances.
Inb4 China stops reporting this. Just like they did with youth unemployment
Or the democracy protests, pre-covid
I had a Chinese colleague who was in a “relationship” with her idol and thought it was way more convenient than a real partner. I am fully ready to see people be openly happy with AI partners and never try to have real partners.
Especially because it’s hard to have a social life when you’re asked to work 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, or worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_systemBirths are tightly linked to marriage in China, with childbearing out of wedlock discouraged by traditional values and various government regulations.
“Various government regulations”? Damn, dude. Like what? Maybe easing up on those regulations would help the birth rate a bit.
Well yeah, who wants to put a Chinese kid through what their parents have to live through?
