The number of marriage registrations in China in the first half of the year has fallen to the lowest level since 2013 amid deteriorating economic and political conditions, the latest official data show.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Ministry of Civil Affairs released the statistics for the second quarter of 2024 on Aug. 2 showing that in the first half of this year, 3.43 million couples got married nationwide, a decrease of 498,000 compared with 3.928 million couples in the first half of 2023, a decrease of 12.7 percent.
The number of marriage registrations in the first half of this year hit a new low in recent years, even lower than the 3.732 million couples in the first half of 2022 when the country was under strict COVID-19 lockdown imposed by the regime.
The number rebounded to 3.928 million in 2023 after the CCP abandoned all COVID-19 restrictions, but fell again in 2024.
In 2013, the number of marriage registrations in China reached as high as 13.47 million couples, and then declined year after year. By 2022, it fell to 6.835 million couples, only about half of that of 2013, according to public records. From 2019 to 2023, the number of couples getting married has been below 10 million for five consecutive years.
Li (who declined to give his full name due to safety concerns), a lawyer in China, told The Epoch Times that the CCP’s economic development model has led to poverty and too much debt for people. Young people can’t afford to have families and their expectations for family happiness are very low.
“Because [people are] living in a very bad economy, it’s impossible to talk about quality of life and happiness,“ Li said. ”Even if they have jobs, young people can only make ends meet, and they dare not expect to support their families, so they dare not get married, let alone have children. This is the true situation China faces.”
Ji Feng, the leader of the June 4, 1989, student democratic movement in Guizhou Province and an artist, told The Epoch Times that the Chinese communist regime cannot reverse the current situation.
“If the marriage rate continues to be low, the population will decline and shrink, and then there will be a cultural disconnect. The impact will be too great. There will be no successors for the labor force and talents, and the economy will continue to decline,” Ji said.
Chen Ying-Hsuan, an associate research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said one of the main reasons for the low marriage rate in 2024 is the high cost of getting married and the sluggish Chinese economy.
“The low marriage rate will lead to the problem of low birth rate. The current social atmosphere in China still requires marriage to have children. Therefore, it is expected that China’s birth rate is bound to decline next year, and the population under the age of 20 may fall below 100 million,” she predicted.
China’s Negative Population Growth
The CCP admitted in 2023 that the Chinese population recorded negative growth for the first time in 61 years, decreasing by 850,000 in 2022.However, the CCP’s official numbers are often questioned by the international community, including the country’s COVID-19 death toll, due to its lack of transparency. The Chinese regime is suspected of downplaying its population decline by experts on Chinese population issues.
Hung Ming-te, an associate research fellow at INDSR, believes the negative population growth is a major contributing factor to the low marriage data this year.
He said that China’s low marriage number this year is related to an overall population decrease in China.
“Well-known population experts and scholars, such as Yi Fuxian, have long said that China has experienced negative population growth as early as 2018 and 2019. I think under this irreversible trend, [the CCP] has to announce a decrease in the number of couples getting married because it’s impossible to massage the numbers and make it pretty,” Hung said.
“I personally think the official number has a certain degree of credibility, but I don’t rule out the possibility of them slightly modifying the actual data. I think the actual number could be worse.”
He pointed out that China only officially admitted having more deaths than newborns in 2022.
“The huge death toll of COVID-19 in China being covered up is a big factor. ... That’s why the outside world thinks that China’s negative population growth is more serious [than the CCP admitted],” Hung said.
“Because just COVID-19 has caused so many deaths in various countries around the world. China was completely closed off, how many people have died in the country? That’s why the CCP had to report the negative growth of population, it’s inevitable after the pandemic. The deaths caused by COVID-19 have caused the negative population growth,” Hung said.
