China’s Marriage Rate Bounces Back After Covid—But Only Temporarily

After nearly a decade of steadily declining marriage rates, China saw a 12.4% jump in the number of new marriages in 2023 compared with the prior year. However, this uptick is very likely a temporary blip rather than a long-term change from China’s steady transition to a rapidly aging society marked by falling marriage rates, ultra-law fertility, and a declining number of youth.

In late 2022, China abruptly lifted its tough Covid-zero policies. Such policies, marked by tough mobility restrictions, tight controls on gatherings, and increasing reliance on large city-wide lockdowns in the face of ever more transmissible virus variants, not only took a significant toll on economic activity but also led many couples to postpone wedding plans—contributing to a nearly 11% decline in marriages between 2021 and 2022. Lifting of Covid-zero policies triggered a rebound in both the economy and society from the artificially low pandemic levels.

Other East Asian societies have also seen upticks in marriages as the pandemic receded. Taiwan logged a roughly 11% surge in 2022 as it exited from its own pandemic-control policies. In 2023, South Korea saw marriages rise for the first time in eleven years – up 1% to 193,657, from 191,690 a year earlier. Japan too, witnessed a small increase in the numbers of new marriages between 2021 and 2022. 

But none of these trends appear likely alter East Asia’s overall trajectory. In both Taiwan and Japan, numbers of new marriages resumed their decline between 2022 and 2023. In Japan, the total number of new marriages fell below 500,000 for the first time in over 90 years – roughly 20% lower than the pre-pandemic level of in 2019. South Korea has experienced a similar dramatic decline, and Taiwan a slightly less extreme one.

Such trends in marriage rates are intimately tied to broader demographic shifts. With extra-marital births highly uncommon in East Asia, falling marriage rates are themselves a leading indicator of declining fertility rates. In all likelihood, China—where the number of marriages registered each year has declined roughly 50% since the peak reached in 2013—will steadily follow in the footsteps of its East Asian neighbors towards a rapidly aging society marked by falling marriage rates, ultra-law fertility, and a declining number of youth.