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[Herald Economy = Reporter Jeong Mok-hee] Abi Gao, a wedding planner in Beijing, once staged ultra-luxury wedding processions featuring 58 Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis. She filled venues with 35,000 roses and placed bottles of premium Maotai, each worth hundreds of dollars, on every banquet table.<\/p>\n
Today, with wedding demand plunging, she can no longer survive on weddings alone and has added children\u2019s birthday parties to her business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe market has completely collapsed,\u201d Gao said. \u201cLast year I had about 100 wedding clients; in 2012 I had nearly 2,000.\u201d She added, \u201cYoung people today put their own happiness first, and that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On the 15th (local time), Bloomberg reported that marriage registrations in China have been falling for the past decade. Last year they dropped roughly 21% from the previous year, hitting a record low. As a culture of avoiding marriage spreads, concerns about population decline are growing.<\/p>\n
The wedding industry is contracting rapidly. Shanghai consulting firm Daxie Consulting estimates the wedding market has fallen from $524 billion in 2019 to under $400 billion today.<\/p>\n
At the same time, a \u201cdivorce industry\u201d has emerged.<\/p>\n
Companies have begun offering services that professionally shred wedding photos, dresses and albums. \u201cDivorce photo shoots,\u201d in which separated couples tear up wedding photos or toss rings on camera, have also become popular.<\/p>\n
Liu Wei, who runs one such business near Beijing, said, \u201cAt first we handled a few orders a month; now we get dozens a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clients typically observe a one-week reconsideration period before photos are shredded, in case they change their minds. To protect personal information, firms spray faces to obscure identities and then destroy the images with industrial shredders. They can send customers a video of the shredding on request.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some people it\u2019s just disposal,\u201d Liu said. \u201cFor others, it\u2019s a ritual to close a chapter of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Chinese government has rolled out subsidies, tax breaks, childbearing incentives and proposals for divorce cooling-off periods, but those measures have not reversed the trend.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s total fertility rate has not been officially published recently, but estimates suggest it fell below 1.0 last year. Bloomberg notes that while China\u2019s rate is higher than South Korea\u2019s record low of 0.73, it is facing population pressure comparable to Japan (1.22).<\/p>\n
Among young Chinese, the \u201cno marriage, no children\u201d (\u4e0d\u5a5a\u4e0d\u80b2) mindset is spreading quickly.<\/p>\n
Analysts point to the slowing economy, soaring wedding costs, the burden of buying a home and pressure to provide large betrothal gifts as key drivers pushing young people away from marriage.<\/p>\n
Ada Li, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said, \u201cThis decline in marriage is not a temporary phenomenon; it is hardening into a structural shift. High costs, youth unemployment, economic weakness and skepticism about traditional family roles are leading more young people to forgo marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing, so-called matchmaking markets still operate. Parents meet there four times a week to seek spouses for their children.<\/p>\n
Papers plastered across the park walls list singles\u2019 ages, education, annual income, height and weight \u2014 and note whether they hold Beijing hukou or own a home or car. Preferences such as \u201cgood character and responsible\u201d or \u201cowns a home or can afford to buy one\u201d are common.<\/p>\n
Notably, ads seeking wives outnumber those seeking husbands, a scene foreign media say underscores the heavier social pressure on women to marry in their 20s.<\/p>\n
In major cities like Beijing, the price per square meter for apartments in top school districts often exceeds the average annual salary. Combined with anxiety about future employment, many young people increasingly view marriage itself as a luxury. Currently, one in six Chinese youths aged 16 to 24 is unemployed.<\/p>\n
Social and cultural shifts are also significant. Some Chinese women are openly rejecting expectations that they assume traditional caregiving roles. On social media, content featuring financially independent women explaining why they will not marry has resonated widely.<\/p>\n
A female influencer on Xiaohongshu, China\u2019s Instagram equivalent, said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to cook three meals a day for a family and pick up socks and toys off the floor. I wasn\u2019t born to do men\u2019s laundry and have children. I just want to live happily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Experts say the spread of feminism and rising female economic power have strongly influenced changing attitudes toward marriage in China.<\/p>\n
Professor Pan Wang of the University of New South Wales in Sydney explained, \u201cAs women become economically and mentally independent, their dependence on men has declined, and so has the perceived need for marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, the \u201csolo economy\u201d is growing quickly in China. Appliances, travel packages and consumer services targeting single-person households are proliferating.<\/p>\n
According to the Chinese government, last year\u2019s 6.1 million marriage registrations were the fewest since records began in 1986 \u2014 less than half the 2013 peak. In 2023, about 30% of 30-year-olds were unmarried, up from roughly 15% a decade earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wedding planner Abby Gao struggles as demand plummets, shifting to children’s parties amid a 21% drop in marriages in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/thumbnail\/2026\/05\/CP-2023-0083\/thumb-39f90be3-c753-43aa-a66e-e2751dcd0909.jpg","footnotes":""},"categories":[278100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social"],"yoast_head":"\n