The Chinese no longer marry

China wants more babies. That is clear. Which generates doubts in a society In transformationin which young people marry less and less, divorces grow and birth It has been In free fall it is how to get it. Over the last years the Xi Jinping government has tested solutions of all kinds, since Finance painless births either Grant aid to proclaim the benefits of marriage in classrooms or even call directly Women to encourage them to have children. Now it is proposed to try A new trick: Reduce the legal age to marry.

There are those He already warns That will serve as little.

AGE QUESTION. When there for the 70s China raised how to stop his overpopulation not only designed his famous “Politics of the only child”the rule that for decades (until 2015) prohibited the country’s couples from having more than one rod. Another of the measures promoted by the government was to limit marriages placing the legal age to marry in 22 years for men and 20 for women. The result, like I remembered a few days ago Global Timesdaily backed by the Chinese State, is that the country now has one of the most restrictive norms in the world.

By prohibiting boys under 22 and young women with less than 20 can go through the Chinese altar became one of the nations with the legal age to contract the highest marriage in the world, moving away from the 18 years that mark the common threshold at international level. In the EU for example the Minimum age To marry is 18 years old in Scotland, where young people can give the ‘yes I want’ from 16. Most laws foresee marriages before age, but only with permission from parents or a judicial body.

What if we change the norm? That is the idea that the professor of Econometry Chen Songxi He has transferred to the National Committee of China’s Political Advisory Conference (CCPPCH), An important political advisory body of the country. Chen’s is not just any voice. First because he is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Second because it is part of CCPPCH itself, which meets these days precisely to consider proposals in different areas, from economic and social to technological.

In that prestigious (and influential) forum one of the issues that generates the most in China will be touched: the loss of population that the country drags Since 2022 And its consequences both social level As economical. Precisely for this reason Chen transferred some proposals to CCPPCH: completely eliminate birth restrictions (since 2021 they are allowed Only three children as a couple), apply a system of incentives to marriage and birth rate and review the age at which Chinese young people can marry.

Objective: greater birth. In The chronicle of Global Times It is clarified that Chen’s goal is very clear: encourage birth. With the proposal, The newspaper requires Chinese, you want to “expand the fertile population base and release the reproductive potential.” It is not Beijing’s first movement in that direction. Throughout the last months (and years) the government has opted for tax advantagesimprove access to treatments either campaigns which highlights the advantages of motherhood and life as a couple. And that between a long etcetera of questionable success initiatives.

In 2024 China saw how its birth rate increased (registered 9.54 million births compared to 9.02 of 2023), but even that rebound leaves a bittersweet flavor. First because the data of 2023 had been lousy, marking the minimum since 1949. Second because even that slight rise prevented the country from closing the year with a bad demographic balance, losing 1.39 million inhabitants and chaining its third year of population fall.

Will the new measure work? One thing is that the CCPPCH endorses Chen’s proposal and the government decides to cut the legal age for Casere, placing it in 18 years, and another very different that this movement will really encourage Chinese birth. There are experts who are already quite skeptical. “It will do nothing to increase the fertility rate now that people have accustomed to marry and have children later,” Explain to Financial Times The demographer Yi Fuxian. Is not the only one that thinks so.

The data of course invite you even though the measure will have a small effect. In 2020 the average age of the first marriage in China stood quite above the 20 years that mark the legal minimum for them and 22 of them: among women it was from 28 years and among men of 29.4.

Can the fact that couples go through the altar will make this measure reduce? And yet, do you have to translate that into greater birth? South Korea neighbor leaves an interesting example: despite the fact that there the legal age to marry It is already 18 years oldPeople continue to decide to go through the altar much later. The trend It approaches In fact at 30 years.

Who thinks of weddings? That is the second weak point of Chen’s idea. Experts may see in the marriage a way to improve the reduction of the country, but the truth is that the Chinese themselves think less and less about marriage. The 2024 data Disseminated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs itself, they are of course revealing. Last year they gave the ‘yes I want’ in China 6.1 million couples. Not only represents 20.5% less than in 2023. The data confirms the downward trend since 2013, but also marks a new historical minimum in official statistics, which date back to 1986.

Beyond demography. Cen’s proposal has not awakened too much enthusiasm in networks. Largely because it is not entirely new. As the Chinese birth rate descended the idea of ​​lowering the legal age to marry has been giving a hole in the public debate with moments when gaining greater prominence. It happened already in 2019. And then in 2021.

The South China Morning Post collected these days Comments from Weibo users who are skeptical: “At 18 you are not even mature enough to be a mother and it is already difficult to make a living for oneself. How are you going to raise a child?”

The background debate. In the background there is an even more film debate, that of the Paulatino Aging of China and the consequences that this trend has at a social and economic level. Chen’s team He has made accounts which show that in 2024 the population over 65 were 15.6% of the Chinese total census. If nothing changes and the current trend is maintained, in 2031 that percentage would already exceed 20%, making China a “supervevened society.”

In 2050 they would already be 29.5% and in 2086 it would reach 42.2%. The objective of the demographer is that China can take advantage of the horizon that opens between 2025 and 2035, when according to their calculations the number of women of fertile age in the country will be stabilized.

In Xataka | Two data explain China’s future perfectly: there have never been so few weddings or so many pets at home

Images | Llee_wu (Flickr), Drew Bates (Flickr)