Over the past few decades, China's fertility policy has been adjusted several times, in the process, the education level has increased, the marriage cost competition intensified, self-awareness and other complex factors intertwined, marriage, more and more become a "alternative" to young people's lives.
On February 22, 2022, a large number of newlyweds lined up outside the marriage registration office of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Chaoyang District, Beijing, waiting for registration. Photo/Visual China
Text | Caijing reporter Jin Yilong
Edit | Zhu Tao
Zheng Lihan, 33, feels that the current single life in Beibu is very good.
She goes out at 9 a.m. every day, and if she's not busy at work, she can usually leave work at 7 p.m., come home and eat some fast food, and be alone in the room, reading books and doing live broadcasts. On weekends, she enjoys attending psychological salons and chatting with friends about drinks.
Since leaving home to go to college in 2009, Zheng Lihan has lived alone in Beijing for 12 years, engaged in front-end development, website editing, new media operations and other different jobs. Although there will also be "marriage urging" pressure, she seems quite calm, "There are so many big things to do in life, why do I have to get married and have children first?" This may be the epitome of the new generation of young people's attitude towards marriage and childbearing, which is not the same as the original choice of the parents.
Zheng Lihan's parents were born in the 1960s, their growth environment is full of collective, grand narrative, dedication, influenced by the traditional concept of "men should be married, women should be married", in that era, at the age of 20 or so, getting married and having children was almost a "must-have topic" in life.
Over the past few decades, China's fertility policy has been adjusted several times, in the process, the education level has increased, the cost of marriage competition has intensified, self-awareness and other complex factors are intertwined, marriage, more and more marriageable people like Zheng Lihan, living alone in the city, living a single life.
According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, in 2021, 7.636 million marriages were registered in China. This is below 8 million pairs after falling below 10 million pairs in 2019 and 9 million pairs in 2020, and it has also become a record low since the Ministry of Civil Affairs began to publish marriage registration data in 1986.
Yuan Xin, vice president of the Chinese Society and professor of the Institute of Population and Development of the School of Economics of Nankai University, pointed out that behind the decline in the number of marriage registrations are late marriages, non-marriages and living alone, which is not a new phenomenon, but the inevitable result of the law of population development, and countries around the world have experienced similar situations. Judging from the actual situation in China, the postponement of the age of first marriage and the decrease in the total number of marriageable people are the basic factors affecting the number of married people. It is foreseeable that as the number of marriages decreases year by year, it will directly depress the number of births and have a certain impact on consumption in the family sphere.
At the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2022, Zhou Yanfang, a deputy to the National People's Congress, proposed to accelerate the establishment and improvement of a family-friendly policy system, which mentioned that "encouraging and guaranteeing the marriage and childbirth of master's and doctoral students in school" has aroused heated discussion in society. "Caijing" reporter interviewed several young people, in addition to looking for reasons to live alone or marry late, but also tried to show the marriage dilemma of contemporary young people, their thinking on fertility, and their choices for lifestyle.
"Why do you have to get married and have children?"
Outside beijing's fifth ring road, Zheng Lihan rented a 10-square-meter studio for 2,000 yuan per month. The room is not large, but it accommodates a small desk, a 1.5-meter-wide bed, a wardrobe, air conditioning... In short, there should be as much furniture as there should be. "Enough for me to live, that's how I used to come." It sounds as if she is used to living alone now.
On the way home from work, Zheng Lihan used to go to the store to buy snail powder, dumplings and other fast food instead of dinner, and the 1L rice cooker purchased online was suitable for her to use alone.
Zheng Lihan moved here in September 2021, and the master bedroom and second bedroom also live with single roommates. Aside from being able to roughly guess each other's ages, several young people living in the same dwelling did not have more contact and understanding of each other. This kind of roommate relationship that does not disturb each other makes Zheng Lihan feel relaxed.
Seven years ago, Zheng Lihan's state was not like this. She was working at an auto service company, and at that time, the O2O war was in full swing, and the company raised a lot of money, so it recruited on a large scale. But the outlet came and went quickly, and only four months after the turnaround, she was laid off. That same year, she went into an energy startup again, but the boss's new project investment failed and she was laid off again.
"My brain is in a state of chaos, and I don't think I'm good enough." Zheng Lihan described the mood at that time. That year, she was 26 years old, in the golden age of women in the marriage market, her mother urged her to find a partner on the phone from time to time, and her father also sent news of business failure, and when these emotions piled up, she found herself suffering from moderate depression.
Zheng Lihan's way of reversing depression is self-learning. Since 2017, she has watched many books and movies related to intimate relationships. A year later, Zheng Lihan, who was originally a computer major, decided to switch to the psycho-emotional counseling industry. Returning home during the Spring Festival, relatives talked about her work, and some did not understand: "You have reached the age of marriage and children, why do you still have tossing?" "It's better to do well than to marry well." Zheng Lihan admitted that she was indeed affected by these words, and she was also anxious because of her age, but after attending several psychological salons, she was relieved, because several excellent women are forty or fifty years old, still pursuing career and love, "Why do you have to get married and have children?" Our values should not be defined by others. She said.
"With the diversification of social development, the younger generation has more goals in life, no longer 'marrying a man to dress and eat', they pay more attention to spiritual satisfaction." Ji Yingchun, a professor at the School of Sociology of Shanghai University, has long studied the problems of marriage and family in China, and in her view, the rise of living alone as a way of life actually reflects the gradual disintegration of the traditional function of marriage and the change of the concept of marriage and love.
According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, in 2019, the number of single adults in China reached 260 million, of which 80 million lived alone like Zheng Lihan.
In the days of living alone, Zheng Lihan posted videos and wrote articles on Zhihu, Douyin, and Weibo, jokingly calling himself the "Eighteen-Line Village Flower". She tells the story of her original family and shares her understanding of marriage and family. "I don't worry about what others think of me, I'm braver and more open than ever, and closer to my true self." Zheng Lihan is now a psychological counseling blogger with 30,000 followers.
But when asked if he was ready not to get married, Zheng Lihan thought about it: "Getting married or not getting married, it's all about walking around and seeing, and if you don't meet the right one, you will be (first) alone." "For her at this stage, it is more important to find herself than to simply identify a relationship.
Everyday of the city blind date corner
Zheng Lihan grew up in the south, and her mother created the traditional image of a good wife and mother, and instilled in her the idea of "girls should be independent" from an early age. She studied hard and was admitted to the China Women's College at the age of 20, which is where the All-China Women's Federation trains women cadres and talents. After entering school, she slowly realized that women could also participate in social competition and did not have to go around the family all day.
At that time, she liked to read Nalan Rongruo's poetry, was attracted by the love described in it, confessed to boys, and was also pursued by some boys, but each relationship could only last for a few months, far from the point of talking about marriage. "I yearn for true love, and I don't reject blind dates, and the more I talk, the richer my experience." This is Zheng Lihan's consistent attitude, but after the age of 30, she found that women will be picked up by men because of their age, and from this point of view, Zheng Lihan, who has received higher education in big cities, may not be much luckier than some girls who marry early in the countryside.
One year Zheng Lihan went home to take the civil service examination, relatives took the opportunity to give her a blind date, the other party is more than 30 years old, Wuhan natives, have a house and a car, no loans, parents have pensions, the family opens a chess and card room, the income is stable. On the day of the meeting, the boy was wearing a name tag, as if to show some kind of strength. "People see my condition and rush over... I can also find a little girl in her 20s", "Follow me, you don't have to fight for the house", and the other party also has a sense of superiority in the conversation.
Zheng Lihan admitted that although material is important for maintaining marital stability, this should not be the primary factor to consider, but she did not say it at the time, only asked a question: Who will do the housework in the future? The boy blurted out ,"Whoever pays the low wage does it." In fact, the other party's monthly salary is only more than 4,000 yuan, aside from his high school education, this answer makes Zheng Lihan instantly feel an inequality, in front of age, her emotions, personality, hobbies are not "seen".
The imbalance encountered by Zheng Lihan is dramatic in the eyes of ordinary people, but walking into the blind date corner of the city park that is popular today, you will find that this is just daily life, and it is so real and natural. Caijing reporters followed a Friday "booth" time to visit the Seven Stars Stone of Beijing's Temple of Heaven Park , which is said to be the largest blind date in Beijing.
Crossing a path, looking around, crowded with elderly men and women, each holding an A4 paper-sized "resume" with children's marriage information written on it, some hanging directly around their necks, like a market with a clear price tag. Occasionally, the red lady mixed in the crowd: "Boy, come, add a WeChat, aunt to introduce you to the girl." ”
Judging from the "resumes" placed on the side of the road, most of the girls' birth time is concentrated in 1980-1990; all of them have Beijing households; they all work in central enterprises, institutions, financial institutions, scientific research institutes or Internet factories; most of them graduated from key universities, including many overseas famous universities, and the minimum is 211 undergraduate degrees.
It is reasonable to say that such conditions should be regarded as a high-quality group in the marriage market, but why would they become "leftover women"? This phenomenon has attracted the attention of Ji Yingchun. Around 2019, she led the research team to the Shanghai People's Park Blind Date Corner to investigate, an interesting finding is that many parents actually came without their daughters, some of them came for more than ten years, but their daughters did not seem to be in a hurry to enter the marriage, and even felt that it was a shameful thing to marry in the blind date corner. Although he is in his 30s, he is beyond the age of late marriage.
In his 2019 book The Single Age, Wang Feng, a distinguished professor in the Department of Sociology at Fudan University's School of Social Development and Public Policy, estimates that at least 7 million women between the ages of 25 and 30 in China's cities have never been married, and they are concentrated in first-tier cities, with Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai ranking in the top three.
One explanation for the emergence of the phenomenon of "urban leftover women" is the increase in women's educational attainment. According to the Ministry of Education, women are enrolled in schools more than men at the undergraduate, master's and doctoral levels.
Yuan Xin admitted to the "Finance" reporter, "Now is a highly competitive society, whether it is to get a higher salary job, or to make yourself more advantageous in the marriage market, receiving higher education has become a common choice, both men and women." This will inevitably extend the graduation time, but also compress the chances of love to a certain extent, and further reduce the probability of marriage.
China has experienced the process of agricultural economy to industrial economy, and is now transforming into a knowledge economy, which is bound to put forward higher requirements for workers, and the improvement of education level is also popular in society, but the problem that follows is that high-quality young men in the blind date market in big cities are scarce. According to the fifth anniversary user report released by the dating agency Momr, as of March 2020, the ratio of male and female guests "listed" on the platform is about 29:71. Ji Yingchun also found that the Shanghai People's Park Blind Date Corner seems to be very lively, in fact, mixed with a lot of people in marriage agencies and online bloggers, in addition to these, the ratio of men and women in the stall information is roughly 2:8.
In the blind date corner, age is a sensitive topic. When the Caijing reporter visited, he heard such a dialogue: "85 (year) ah, do not want, we only consider 86 (year) after." "In the face of similar marriage information, why is it particularly harsh on age? Ji Yingchun offers an explanation: the criteria for choosing a spouse between the two parties are not exactly the same, although they are both married for their children.
According to Ji Yingchun's observation, under normal circumstances, when men consider whether they are suitable for age, they are more likely to link women with fertility, genetic level, and the ability to educate children, although they do not necessarily require women to have a high income, but expect to have a certain degree; while women value whether men have local hukou, independent housing, economic ability and height, and do not attach much importance to the age gap.
Scholars Zou Xiaohua and Li Mingjun wrote that the higher mate selection standards of elderly and high-quality unmarried women cannot be simply attributed to their conceptual problems or "gold worship" behavior, but should be seen that this is actually the reason for the social structure.
The two scholars said in a paper that the multiple divisions of China's labor market based on the dual household registration system have caused differences in the salary system, employment system and social security system, making it difficult for urban and rural laborers with lower education to flow into the higher-level labor market in the city, and it is difficult to enjoy the social benefits of medical care, pension, children's education and other aspects of the high-level labor market. Older quality women in higher labour markets, on the other hand, are reluctant to choose men from lower labour markets as their spouses and prefer to be single in the absence of men who meet their expectations.
What impressed Ji Yingchun was that many years ago, when doing another "urban leftover women" theme study, she interviewed a girl, she met a boy through the introduction of an intermediary, and the two talked very closely on the first date, but on the second date, after the girl told the other party her age, there was no following.
When talking to the "Finance" reporter about this case, Ji Yingchun's heart is still a little uneven, "This girl is a middle and senior leader in a large company, with a cheerful personality, a beautiful look, and the economic conditions of the two are also equal." In order to attract attention, some girls' parents even "reduced" the real annual salary of more than 1 million yuan to 300,000 yuan, but even so, it is not easy to find a suitable object.
With the continuous influx of "post-90s" young people, the situation of these "post-80s leftover women" will now be more embarrassing, but the problems they face are far more than just marriage.
Who is the "marriage market" squeezing?
In fact, the dilemma of marriage and love occurs not only in the blind date corner of the city park, but also in the wider rural areas of China, there are also many elderly unmarried young men scattered, who have similar characteristics: more than 30 years old, with a high school education or less, going out to work, and unable to come up with a high dowry.
Since the release of the third national census data in 1982, the marriage problem between men and women in the marriage market caused by the imbalance in the sex ratio of the birth population has continued to arouse social concern, and new words such as "marriage squeeze" and "leftover fighter" have emerged in an endless stream, and some scholars have predicted how many men will not be able to find a spouse in the future, ranging from 5 million to 50 million people, and this debate has not stopped. In recent years, major media have put forward the idea of "single stick village". The Notice on Population Development "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" and 2020 Planning issued by the General Office of the State Council mentions that by 2020, it is expected that there will be about 30 million more men than women aged 20-45.
In nature, the sex ratio at birth is generally between 103 and 107. Before the 1980s, the sex ratio of China's birth population was basically normal, and in 1982 it began to show a high momentum, and then climbed year by year, reaching a peak of 121.18 in 2004. Although it has declined since 2009, the data of the Seventh National Population Census (hereinafter referred to as the "Seven-Person Census") shows that in 2021, the sex ratio of China's birth population is 111.3, which is still an extraordinary sex ratio.
Yang Hua, a researcher at the China Rural Governance Research Center of Wuhan University, believes that the unconventional sex ratio at birth in China is mainly due to the rapid increase in the sex ratio at birth in rural areas. In a study, he pointed out that the social consequences of the increase in the sex ratio at birth in rural areas are not revealed at the beginning, but are gradually exposed after the "post-80s" enter the marriageable age, and the situation of the "post-90s" and "post-00s" extraordinary sex ratios is even more severe, and the direct consequence is that a large number of marriageable men cannot find a spouse.
At the end of 2020, when Yang Hua returned to his hometown in rural Hunan, he heard a story, on the construction site next to their village, a middle-aged worker of Chinese nationality cried late at night, and the small contractor ran over to ask the reason, the worker said that he had three sons, all of whom had reached the age of marriage, and when the eldest son got married, the woman asked for a dowry of 300,000 yuan, according to this price, even if the dowry did not rise, the woman did not want a new house, no matter how hard he tried, the second half of his life could not earn the 600,000 yuan dowry that the second son and the third son wanted to marry.
"The bride price has been in any period, giving more to less is at least a "meaning", this "meaning" was originally a lottery, symbolizing auspiciousness, and now gradually loses its original cultural meaning and becomes a bargaining market transaction. Although no one will think of themselves as a commodity, and no parent will think that they are selling their daughters, in real life, if they talk about the bride price of their hands less than the neighbors, they will feel unbalanced psychologically, and even wonder: Is our daughter a bargain? Liu Yanwu, an associate professor at the School of Sociology of Wuhan University, analyzed to the Reporter of Finance and Economics that this phenomenon reflects the formation of the marriage market.
Liu Yanwu has long studied family sociology, rural sociology and rural governance, he found that the traditional local marriage market, generally within a radius of 5 kilometers to 10 kilometers or so is a marriage circle, people born in the 1960s and before, the marriage radius is generally within this range, the market boundary is relatively closed, basically following the tradition of "men are married, women are married", "men are willing to marry, women are willing to marry", and the bride price is easy to form a relatively fixed standard.
Scholar Li Yongping has done research in the rural areas of Henan, Shandong, Shanxi and other northern regions, taking the May-June 2016 survey of The Southern Village of Northern Henan as an example, in the 1960s, the local bride price standard was "six pieces of clothing, six pounds of cotton and six pieces of cloth", which was worth 50 yuan at the time, and in the 1980s, some families with better conditions began to rise in the bride price sewing machine and other simple furniture.
Today, in some rural areas of China, the nature of the bride price has changed. Liu Yanwu said: "The current marriage market is national, around 2010, with the 'post-90s' into the marriage age, the bride price has risen significantly everywhere, some places are a little earlier, about 2005 began, and now it is in a state of bubble, everyone's general psychology is to buy and sell through a hammer, to win as much material support as possible for newlyweds." The high dowry price also provides a possibility for a new generation of migrant workers to buy houses in the city and let their children receive urban education.
Behind the formation of the national marriage market that Liu Yanwu said, there is a background that cannot be ignored. Since the 1980s and 1990s, the "migrant economy" has gradually emerged, and a large number of rural laborers in the central and western regions have shifted to the eastern coastal areas, which means that the outflow of women's marriage resources has accelerated at the same time, and the traditional intermarriage circle has been out of balance. These factors have squeezed the local marriage market, further raised the rural marriageable sex ratio after 2010, and intensified the competition in the rural marriage market.
"After the new generation of migrant workers entered the city, the nature of employment changed, the way of life contrasted, they changed from a free peasant to a disciplined industrial worker, although they are in the city, but the interpersonal circle is relatively single, and the original kinship and blood relations have become estranged." Yuan Xin said that when families and society cannot provide more support, it is more difficult for young people of this generation to find partners than in the past.
The more grim reality is that, according to Yang Hua's research, the rural "post-90s" not only generally have a higher sex ratio than the "post-80s", but also 3 million fewer than the "post-80s". In such cases, rural men have to pay a higher price if they want to retain local girls or attract girls from other places.
Xiao Dong, a 26-year-old from Zhongxiang, Hubei Province, graduated from a college in Wuhan in 2018, and the local government was setting off a huge "robbery war", but after hesitating, he still chose to go to the more economically developed Jiangsu province from the countryside, for the simple reason: "His girlfriend is over there." ”
It was his first girlfriend, and the two met while playing games and have been in a relationship for four years now. "She has a gentle personality, is easy to communicate with, and is not the kind of person who is very materialistic." This is the type that Xiao Dong likes, and he plans to rush to get married. To keep the relationship going, he spends the weekends with his girlfriend and spends the rest of the time at work.
At present, Xiao Dong's life is not very good. He heard that the girlfriend's cousin will get married in the future, and the man will probably pay a dowry of 800,000 yuan, "People (the girlfriend's cousin's family) open a company, the conditions are good, and the dowry will definitely exceed 1 million yuan." "Xiao Dong's girlfriend's parents are ordinary office workers in a county in southern Jiangsu, more reasonable, and now there is no clear amount of the bride price, but Xiao Dong understands in his heart that the bride price is more or less meaningful, and the standard in the village of his hometown in recent years is about 70,000 yuan, and jiangsu is estimated to be higher."
For Xiao Dong at this stage, the most important thing is to save money to buy a house - this is not only the marriage conditions proposed by the woman, but also a way for Xiao Dong to prove that he can establish himself in the city, planning to buy a house with a total price of 800,000-900,000 yuan. According to the current price, he has to prepare a down payment of 200,000-300,000 yuan.
Thinking of this, Xiao Dong, who has only graduated for four years, feels stressed, and his parents in his hometown are more than 50 years old, and the support he can provide is limited, so he will also work part-time to deliver takeaways after work every day to earn some extra money, "We are too stressed to get married after 90, and strive to buy a house early, next year or the year after." ”
The era of late marriage is coming, what is the impact?
In the increasing competition in the marriage and love market, Xiao Dong is lucky to meet girls who are willing to wait for him at the right age, but for more young people working in big cities, it is not easy to build confidence in marriage. They can only postpone the age of marriage indefinitely until they are ready.
Wu Jun, a marriage and family counselor at the Marriage Registration Office of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Jianye District, Nanjing, has seen too many young people who are anxious about marriage, and some of them have impressed her. One day in December 2021, the girl Anzi (pseudonym) came here, first counting the boyfriend's kindness to her, "I came to pick me up after work, I want to eat anything he bought for me, I think I can't find such a good man in the next life..." Wu Jun pricked up her ears and listened to An Zixi for more than 20 minutes, she thought to herself: "Since people are so good to you, then what are you hesitating or struggling with?" When Wu Jun threw the question to Anzi, the 28-year-old girl was very worried, "After getting married, will he be bad to me?" Will there be such a day? ”
Anzi's confusion can be seen as a manifestation of the fear of marriage among contemporary young people, but Wu Jun is not in a hurry to make a judgment, engaged in marriage counseling for five years, and she wants to know more about "Why are everyone afraid of marriage?" In the subsequent counseling service, Wu Jun learned that Anzi's girlfriend complained to her about the unhappiness of marriage at both ends of three days, and her brother divorced after more than a year of marriage, and affected by these negative emotions, Anzi hesitated for several years between "knot and no knot".
At the beginning, the marriage and family counseling room set up by the Marriage Registration Office of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Nanjing Jianye District only provided divorce counseling and did some rescue work, but since 2018, there have been more and more counselors like Anzi, so now there are more and more projects such as premarital counseling and single dating clubs, hoping to strengthen the education and guidance of marriageable young people's concept of marriage and love and family concept, which is the direction advocated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs's "marriage custom reform experiment".
Over the past few years, marriage and family counselors have seen the changes in the concept of marriage and love of a new generation of young people. Wu Jun remembered that once they invited local college students to participate in a singles dating party, including many master's students and doctoral students, called over, and the answer was "Teacher, we don't have time, it's boring to fall in love, and scientific research is more interesting." In the words of these girls, in the current era, men's functions for marriage and family are becoming weaker and weaker.
Wu Jun understands this psychology. She said: "Many post-90s are only children, growing up in the greenhouse, when they become adults, they desperately want to make their own decisions, no one wants to accommodate anyone, since one person can also solve their own life, there is no need to rely on the other half." The increasingly perfect social security system and social services that are convenient to reach home have also subverted the traditional concept of "raising children and preventing the elderly".
Although the self-sufficient solitary lifestyle is increasingly popular among young people, Wu Jun cautions that as age increases, it may reduce people's social skills and further trigger psychological problems such as autism.
Chen Cheng (pseudonym), 30, is a man who is afraid of loneliness. Four years ago, he was a reporter in Beijing in a media, because he did not have to sit in work, every day a person nestled in the 160 square meters of three-bedroom apartment rented by the unit, after getting up in the morning, the first thing was to watch the news, switch between various news clients, find topics, write articles, communicate with the headquarters leaders online, and order takeout when hungry. Such a life made Chen Cheng feel anxious, he hoped that there was someone around him who could talk, and some friends even joked, suggesting that he rent out the remaining two bedrooms, at least a companion. Prior to that, he had had a brief long-distance relationship, but it didn't work out.
In the six years of North Drift, Chen Cheng has known many people, and the number of WeChat friends has risen from more than 100 in college to more than 2,800 now, but many girls of the same age have only noted their names and units, and have not made deep friends. In his view, the reason why he has been single for a long time is not unrelated to his introverted personality and insufficient understanding of the emotions of men and women.
Since the age of 27, Chen Cheng's desire to "get off the list" has become even stronger. He has purchased membership services for two Internet dating projects, spending more than 10,000 yuan. At first, he felt that this was a worthwhile "investment", but after participating in several blind dates, he had a feeling of "being dissuaded".
At a group blind date, male and female guests sat facing each other and entered the self-introduction session, several northeastern boys spoke for ten minutes in one breath, and the "two-person turn" of the impromptu performance made everyone amused. When it was Chen Cheng's turn, he found that he couldn't even tell a joke. After going through the process, a girl with an eye rim did not meet.
"I want to get married early and have kids later." Chen Cheng admits that this decision comes from his inner drive, as early as 2020, he bought a marriage house in a provincial capital city in central China, and with his current income situation, the mortgage can also be affordable. However, if he wants to stay in Beijing, hukou is a big problem, and back home, he is not sure if he can find a satisfactory job.
"With the development of cities and the improvement of the economic level, the pressure on young men and women is increasing, and this pressure is both from the economic level and the fear of having and educating children in the future, which means that the responsibility and payment after marriage are getting bigger and bigger, and fewer and fewer people can bear this responsibility." Zhao Xiaochun, director of the Civil Affairs Bureau of Nangang District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, replied to the "Caijing" reporter that the local marriage rate has declined year by year, the phenomenon of postponing the age of first marriage is obvious, and the phenomenon of late marriage is becoming more and more prominent.
On a larger scale, according to a study by He Dan, Zhang Xuying, Zhuang Ya'er, "Report on China's Fertility Status 2006-2016 – Based on the Data Analysis of the 2017 National Fertility Sample Survey", the age of first marriage for Chinese women has been postponed from 23.6 years in 2006 to 26.3 years in 2016, an increase of 2.7 years in ten years. Since 2006, the proportion of married women during china's fertility boom has continued to decline, with the proportion of married women aged 20-29 falling from 66.8% in 2006 to 55.2% in 2016, and the proportion of married women aged 20-34 from 77.9% to 68.5%.
"Marriage delays have become a decisive factor in China's low fertility rate." Chen Wei, a professor at the School of Society and Population of Chinese Min University, said in an interview with Caijing that marriage and fertility in East Asian cultural regions show a strong relationship, and the decline in the marriage rate and the postponement of the age of first marriage will inevitably lead to a decline in fertility.
At present, the decline in birth rate has become a common crisis facing the whole world, but in contrast, China's decline in birthrate has changed more rapidly. According to the data of the "Seven-Person Census", in 2020, the total fertility rate of women of childbearing age is only 1.3, which is lower than the "red line" of the low fertility trap of 1.5 agreed by the academic community.
But if the reason is simply attributed to women, it is not advisable in Ji Yingchun's view. "Late marriage and late childbearing are an inevitable choice after the economic and social development reaches a certain stage, and the key lies in how our support means become more attractive." She said that due to the influence of patriarchal culture, the traditional gender division of labor within the family is still continuing today, which has largely shaped the dual status and double burden of women in the labor market and the family, which is a dead knot, and in today's low fertility discussion, it is necessary to include a gender perspective and pay attention to people who want to have children but have concerns.
Yuan Xin believes that from the statistical point of view, China has a total population of 1.4 billion and nearly 900 million working people, the population size is still huge, even if the population growth is zero or even negative growth, it will not have a huge impact on the economy in the short term, so there is no need to panic excessively. However, it should be noted that the generation of young people who have grown up under the wave of the Internet do not care about "passing on the generations" and are not willing to let future generations experience the fierce urban social competition they are participating in, which is where the real vigilance lies.
Yuan Xin pointed out that in the short term, more and more young people choose to marry later and not marry, but the proportion of this group is still small, and the impact on the economy is small. But in the long run, it is easy for them to form an idle attitude towards life, thinking that they only need to support themselves and pay more attention to their own consumption, such as entertainment, tourism, etc., which may affect work motivation and even have a certain impact on the social economy.
