Moments after registering their marriage, Zhang Gang and Weng Linbin posed in front of a red backdrop adorned with a Chinese government emblem, fanning out the wad of cash they had received as an incentive to wed.
Zhang’s home city of Luliang in China’s Shanxi Province is one of many places in China where local authorities are offering a slew of inducements to coax couples into tying the knot. The 1,500 yuan (US$205) reward the couple received is part of official efforts to boost the country’s population, which fell for the third straight year last year. The sum is half a month’s average wage for Luliang’s urban population — and more than the monthly average wage for its rural citizens, official data showed.
“I think this policy is quite effective in improving the current marital and romantic situation,” Zhang said. “When I mentioned this policy to my friends, they all thought it was great.”
Photo: AFP
However, more generally, authorities are fighting a tide of reluctance from young people.
Last year, marriages dropped by one-fifth compared with 2023, official data released on Monday showed.
When it comes to having children, experts say that higher costs — especially for education and childcare — and the challenging employment market for recent graduates are among the factors discouraging would-be parents.
When Luliang’s cash incentive for marriage was announced online, many commented that the amount would not be enough to justify the commitment.
The reward — which has an age cut-off of 35 for women — is just the flashiest part of the package.
The former mining city is also offering subsidies and medical insurance contributions for registering newborns.
Married couples in Luliang are given 2,000 yuan for their first registered child, 5,000 for their second and 8,000 for their third.
At a Luliang marriage registry office on Wednesday, a festival day, a steady stream of couples were taking advantage of the nuptial bounty, which was initiated on Jan. 1. An official at the registry said that since New Year’s Day, their office alone had seen more than 400 couples get marriage certificates. At one point the office ran out of cash, said 36-year-old Wang Yanlong, who came to pick up his money this week after getting married early last month. However, this apparent wedding rush might be deceptive.
“My colleague who was preparing to get married next year decided, because of this benefit, to do it this year,” said 34-year-old newlywed Li Yingxing.
Zhang and Weng said they were planning to marry earlier, but waited for the bonus, and a registrar in another Luliang district said that many couples had done similarly.
An advertisement for the 1,500-yuan reward sits among testimonies from happy clients in matchmaker Feng Yuping’s office in Luliang. Most of her clients are women, but the 48-year-old was pessimistic about the prospects of them finding a husband even with the new incentives.
“A man working at a state-owned enterprise might have a bachelor’s degree, but he won’t even look at a girl with a master’s degree in the civil service,” Feng said. “There are still a lot of problems with men’s attitudes toward marriage.”
Feng said that often women are better educated, with a good job, but are rejected because of their age. Some are turning off marriage altogether.
“Women now have their own stable income,” Feng said. “They might be less interested in getting married, and there aren’t many good men.”
The result has been a decline in Luliang’s population.
“The birth rate has dropped seriously,” Feng said, citing examples of kindergartens closing because of lack of demand.
Luliang’s predicament is common across China, with the aging population a major preoccupation of Beijing. The government released a report in October last year listing incentives similar to those in Luliang. Shangyou County in China’s Jiangxi Province has been giving out cash rewards for each family that has a second or third child, the report said.
Meanwhile, subsidies that can reach about 165,000 yuan for families with three children in Tianmen, Hubei Province, were credited by media with reversing a decline in birth rates last year — although the data is still limited.
In Luliang, even those who said the new measures might encourage more couples to get hitched thought the perks were secondary to people’s decision to marry or not.
“The cost of marriage for young people is indeed very high, and it is a factor,” Zhang said. “However, I believe that as long as young people are in love, they will inevitably walk down the aisle together.”
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS