China pilots new-age marriage and childbearing culture project

China will launch a pilot project in more than 20 cities to create a “new era” marriage and childbearing culture, the latest move by the country’s authorities to address its declining birth rate.

A mass wedding was held in Liaocheng City, Shandong Province (China) on April 25, 2023. Photo: Global Times

The Global Times reported on May 15 that the China Family Planning Association will implement projects to encourage women to get married and have children.

Global Times said the pilot project focuses on encouraging marriage and childbirth at the right age, encouraging parents to share child-rearing responsibilities, and tackling the problem of sky-high “bride prices.” The bride price is a long-standing custom in China, in which the groom’s family must give the bride’s family a sum of money before the wedding.

Reuters news agency (UK) said the cities in the pilot project include Guangzhou, Guangdong province and Handan, Hebei province.

“The pilot areas are expected to adopt innovative and proactive measures to support a fertility-friendly environment and contribute to promoting China’s modernization with the support of high-quality population development,” Yao Ying, vice president of the China Family Planning Association, said at an event in Guangdong on May 11.

The project comes as many provincial governments in China have also implemented measures to encourage people to have children, including tax incentives, housing subsidies, and free or subsidized education for the birth of a third child.

In March, delegates at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference proposed that single women should also be able to access in vitro fertilization (IVF) and egg freezing to boost the country's birth rate.

In 2022, China recorded its first population decline since 1961. According to data recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), as of the end of last year, the country's population was 1.41175 billion, down from 1.41260 billion recorded a year earlier.

China's average birth rate in 2022 was 6.77 per 1,000 people, down from 7.52 per 1,000 people recorded a year earlier. This was also the lowest birth rate ever in China.

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