Couples tend to wait before tying the knot

While fewer Chinese couples are willing to tie the knot these days, many of those who do choose to walk down the aisle at a later stage in their lives, according to recently released data.

Last year, 7.64 million marriages were registered in China, a 6.1 percent year-on-year decrease, according to a Ministry of Civil Affairs report.

What's more, it's the record low for the 36 years since the ministry started releasing the report in 1986.

The number of marriage registrations has been declining for eight consecutive years. And 48.2 percent of those who registered to become newlyweds last year were older than 30, setting a record, according to the report.

Guo Xiamei, an associate professor at Xiamen University who specializes in family studies, said: "The COVID-19 epidemic may be a cause of the decline in the desire to marry because it has reduced the chances of meeting potential partners. The economic difficulties that resulted from the epidemic, may also have contributed to the decline.

"The 'cooling off ' period before divorce is another factor in the decline because people are attempting to avoid that risk.

"Statistics show that more people of the younger generation prefer not to get married because lots of young people are more aware that a marriage certificate cannot keep the love fresh," she said.

"To some extent, they see the essence of marriage as actually being a system of allocating property.

"The structure of marriage and family is to build a system to keep society stable, but more and more people think the other way. Marriage, in many people's mind, becomes a risky decision," Guo added.

"The decline in the marriage rate also corresponds with the improvement in education, especially with regard to women. Many developed countries have also faced a declining marriage rate as people received more education. When people get more education, the marriage rate is likely to drop," she said.

The experiences of a 34-year-old Beijing resident surnamed Zhou are in line with the official data and the expert's analysis.

Zhou, who declined to provide her full name, had a stable relationship with her boyfriend and they had a wedding ceremony in 2017. However, it is necessary in China to obtain an official marriage certificate for the union of two people to be legally binding, and Zhou and her boyfriend had not done that.

They lived together, however, and family and friends all saw them as a couple.

"But most of them did not know that we were not a 'legal' couple until last year," she said.

"Back then, I was trying to trade in my old apartment and bought a new one. But the market was not good, so I waited for a good price to sell my old apartment. It took two years. If I bought an apartment after getting married, it would become shared property with my spouse, which is unfair because my parents paid the majority of the down payment," she said.

Zhou also said that the process of applying for a loan is more complicated for a married couple.

After she bought the new apartment in 2019, both Zhou and her partner thought the marriage certificate "is not a big deal".

"Our relationship was even better than most of our married friends' relationships," she said.

Last year, Zhou registered for marriage "only because I was pregnant".

Guo, from Xiamen University, said: "It is important to make the procedure easier for unmarried people to have children in order to encourage births."

Last year, the number of newborns in China fell to 10.62 million, compared with 12 million in 2020.

According to the National Health Commission, China's population growth is set to turn negative, with more deaths than births, by 2025 as the rate has slowed down in the past few years.