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Since 2013, the marriage rate has declined for six consecutive years, and in the regular press conference held by the Civil Affairs Bureau in the first quarter of 2020, only 9.471 million marriages were registered by the national marriage registration authorities in 2019, and the age group of citizens who registered marriages changed from 20-24 years old to 25-29 years old.
From this data, it can be seen that the logarithmic number of marriages of "marriageable" young people has declined, and the age of delayed marriage has increased. In addition, more and more young people are unwilling to live with the elderly even if they have not entered the palace of marriage, and choose to live alone.
According to the data survey of the Civil Affairs Bureau, in 2021, there are currently more than 200 million single adults in China, of which the number of single people living alone has reached 92 million, and is showing rapid and positive development, reaching 100 million people.
In contrast, divorce rates have risen sharply in recent years. According to the data of the China Bureau of Statistics from 2016 to 2021, the proportion of one-person households in China has continued to increase, and the proportion of one-person households in the country reached 16.69% in 2018, which is equivalent to 1 for every 6 households living alone.
So why are more and more young people gradually no longer afraid of loneliness, and even enjoy loneliness? And what is the root cause of post-90s infertility?
(1) The marriage system of the current state of society
For the vast majority of Chinese, the main function of the marriage system is to guarantee property inheritance and child-rearing, and in monogamous society, it guarantees the stability of the family and can promote social harmony.
With the improvement of women's status, the traditional exploitation of women by the marriage system has gradually been excluded, and the number of young people of the right age who marry for economic reasons has gradually decreased. Marriage is no longer a protective wall, and even for many young people who hold the status quo of "unmarried and infertile", it is the graveyard of life.
Spiritual pain, fear of life, and loss of property make many people discouraged from marriage and choose to live alone. When it comes to marriage, it is natural to talk about "functional marriage", which will inevitably cause many young people to talk about the status quo of marriage color change.
According to psychologist Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the more developed the socioeconomic economy becomes, the more concentrated human needs are at the top of the pyramid of psychology, spirituality, and value realization.
It can be seen that more and more young people, when they are exposed to many cultures, are also forming more and more "self", generating their own personality, enjoying loneliness more, identifying with self-worth, and thus rejecting the marital state of taking responsibility and coexisting with others.
Second, the proliferation of group psychology
From individual life to social life, the value of individuals gradually spreads into group values. From a psychological point of view, choosing to live alone is a helpless move to increase the pressure of modern life, and many young people have resistance and resistance psychology.
For most people, in fact, there is "communication fatigue psychology", and extended to "social fear communication", the intricacies of interpersonal relations and the distance between people's hearts make communication gradually blurred under such a background.
Third, the transformation of single and non-single social roles, giving us the choice of emotional power, will naturally lead to the extension of the emotional window period, when the individual has a certain economic ability, young people naturally have more self-choice space.
Individual attitudes gradually spread into group attitudes in social interactions, resulting in the prevalence of solitary psychology.
Third, self-confirming bias
There is a concept in psychology called "self-verification bias", when individuals maintain a certain opinion, they will be more sensitive to the evidence that proves themselves right, and ignore or even strongly oppose the opposite opinion.
So when you keep living alone, unmarried and infertile, all you see is the suffering of married people and the dashing freedom of unmarried people.
And although this confirmation is not fair, it just represents the personal psychological view of marriage and love, and thoughts and consciousness will only stay where they are willing to stay.
And people affected by the "self-confirmation bias" will also actively seek evidence to prove their views in life, and the more determined you are about not marrying and infertile, the more you feel that marriage is terrible, and the more limited your vision is.
Zhou Guoping once said that he was born unsuitable for interpersonal communication and suitable for solitude, only in this way can he become the most authentic self, and there is no doubt that for countless young people who pursue freedom and enjoyment, this concept is very appropriate.
It is often the easiest when I am alone, because I don't feel bored, even if it is boring, I can bear it myself, do not affect others, and do not need to feel uneasy. ”
Such ideas are becoming the dominant ideology of post-90s young people, and the resulting status quo of living alone is increasingly recognized by young people.
The famous psychologist Karen once said: The desire for meaningful solitude does not mean neurosis, on the contrary, the inability to be alone constructively is a signal of neurosis. ”
It can be seen that being alone meaningfully is not a strange disease. The reason why more and more young people choose to be alone and choose not to marry and be infertile is that young people are becoming more and more aware of what they really want.
- The End -
Author | Tommy
Edit | Rain
The First Psychological Writing Group | A group of young people who like to look up at the stars
参考资料：Bruk, A., Scholl, S. G., & Bless, H. (2018). Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability. Journal of personality and social psychology, 115(2), 192-205