A staff member (R) presents a commemorative card to a couple at a marriage registry of Haidian District in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 22, 2022.(Photo: Xinhua)

China has seen the declining marriages during recent years, with the number of people in prime marriages falling below 12 million in 2021, a 37-year low, Yicai.com reported on Thursday citing statistics. Experts said that more supportive and targeted policies should be competently implemented to encourage marriages and ease the problems caused by late marriages.

The number of Chinese registering their first marriage in 2021 stood at 11.58 million, down 708,000 from 2020, according to Yicai.com, citing data from the China Statistical Yearbook 2022 published by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Around 7.64 million couples registered for marriage in 2021, down 6.1 percent from the previous year, according to data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in August. The figure dropped below 8 million for the first time since 2003, nearly half aged 30 or above, according to media reports.

South China's Guangdong Province ranked the first with 987,400 people at prime marriage, followed by Central China's Henan Province with 921,200 people. East China's Jiangsu Province, Southwest China's Sichuan Province and East China's Shandong Province ranked third to fifth, according to the report.

The number of Chinese in their first marriages in 2013 was the highest, reaching 23.86 million, indicating that in the past eight years, the number of people in their first marriages has decreased by 51.5 percent, the report noted.

Reasons behind the falling number have been attributed to fewer people of marriageable age, late first marriages, economic pressure and changing attitudes toward marriage, experts noted. The official data show that the average age of first marriage in 2020 in China was 28.67 years old, delayed 3.78 years from 24.89 in 2010. 

In terms of the average age of first marriage, China is not late compared with the situation in some countries and regions such as Europe and the US, Song Jian, a demographer from the Center for Population and Development Studies of the Renmin University of China told the Global Times on Friday. Compared with the past situation in China, residents' age of first marriage has risen, with the major reasons including more access to higher education and young people seeking professional stability before getting married, Song explained.

Song said that the epidemic also is one of the reasons as the virus caused less chances to let young people have face-to-face communication, which is still one important factor in boosting marriage and healthy relationships. The high living cost raising children and other concerns amongst young people have also led to a drop in marriages.

The decline in the number of prime marriages and newly established families will also affect the birth rate as well as the population structure in the future, and negative population growth will become a firm trend in the coming years or even longer, Song said.

The country has set up a comprehensive set of policies to encourage a higher birthrate such as allowing couples to have three children and college students to get married. Song noted that these policies are good to encourage marriage. However, more improvement can be made, such as building low-income rental housing and more efforts to eliminate old customs such as lavish gifts given to bridal families before a wedding.