Marriage rates in China fall despite plan to boost births

Beijing [China], November 11 : Due to facing barriers in setting up new homes, the marriage rates in China is declining despite the plan to boost births.
Gigi Lee, writing in Radio Free Asia (RFA) said that surveys suggest young people face huge barriers to setting up in new homes, let alone having children.
According to the civil affairs ministry, the number of newly married couples has fallen for the first three quarters of 2021, when compared with figures for the previous year, with just 1.72 million couples tying the knot in the third quarter, a new quarterly low.
Evidence suggests the numbers are continuing to show a long-term downward trend that can't just be linked to the COVID-19 pandemic despite the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aim at encouraging people to have more children amid falling birth rates, wrote Gigi.
As per RFA, this downward trend in birth rate can be attributed to a lack of trust in the government's promises to ease the burden on couples who choose to raise children.
A recent survey by the CCP's Youth League found that for Gen Z -- young people born between 1995 and 2009 -- around 34 per cent of nearly 3,000 urban respondents no longer regard finding a life partner as inevitable.
The survey cited United Nations population data as saying that only 69.2 per cent of 20-29 year-olds are likely to be married by 2030, eight percentage points lower than the 2013 figures.
"The willingness of Gen Z to get married is showing a downward trend," an October 8 report in the CCP's official Guangming Daily said. "Further analysis found that women's willingness to marry is significantly lower than men's."
According to the survey, more than 43 per cent of women said they would either not marry, or were unsure if they would. Uncertainty about marriage was also linked to economic prosperity, with young people in richer cities more likely to want to stay single than those in smaller cities, reported RFA.
"The more developed the economy, the more people actively choose to be single," the report said. "As economic development continues, the number of young people not keen on partnering up may continue to rise."
Young people who took part in a separate, Beijing-based, survey cited problems with finding affordable housing as a major obstacle, in a culture where homeownership is widely seen as a prerequisite for couplehood, the report said.
Others cited the "high economic cost of marriage," and "the high cost of childbirth and bringing up children," the paper said.
Moreover, rights activist Ma Yongtao said CCP policy is largely aimed at protecting the interests of the ruling class, and has failed to address many of the deep-seated issues young people face, said Gigi.
"Any CCP policy works for the interests of the ruling elite, and not on the interests of the general population," Ma told RFA. "Back in the days of family planning policies, they wouldn't allow people to give birth when the population was sufficient."