{"id":41873,"date":"2023-07-29T02:38:43","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T06:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/markets\/chinas-marriage-slump-takes-a-toll-on-the-economy\/"},"modified":"2023-07-29T02:38:45","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T06:38:45","slug":"chinas-marriage-slump-takes-a-toll-on-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=41873","title":{"rendered":"China’s Marriage Slump Takes a Toll on the Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ally Liu, 27, graduated from Beijing\u2019s prestigious Peking University with bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in finance, and now works at an investment firm. She said she\u2019s exhausted from long hours at work. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing, but I\u2019ll just say it,\u201d she said in an interview from China\u2019s capital. \u201cI want to find a guy.\u201d After a long pause, she added, \u201cBut it\u2019s hard.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

China\u2019s marriage rate steadily increased until hitting a peak in 2013, when 13.5 million marriages were recorded. By the end of that year, a precipitous decline began\u2014one that continues. Last year the marriage rate hit half its 2013 level, at 6.8 million, according to China\u2019s Ministry of Civil Affairs.<\/p>\n

The factors complicating Liu\u2019s romantic pursuits are manifold. Either she is drained of energy and pressed for time, or the potential suitor is. Her close relationship with her parents compels her to abide by one of their marriage demands: a spouse must own a home and ideally a car or other investments, or come from a rich family.<\/p>\n

Both the causes and effects of the marriage falloff are being widely discussed in China. For one, the rising unemployment rate for the youth cohort has broken record after record each of the past few years.<\/p>\n

Joblessness for this group, aged 16 to 24, hit a record high of 21.3% in June. By comparison, the rate for the same age group in the U.S. was 7.5% in June, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n

But while China\u2019s number frightens many who are on the cusp of graduation, it may in fact be much higher.<\/p>\n

Last week, a professor at Peking University, wrote in a leading financial magazine that her calculations show the rate could be as high as 46.5%. The online article by Professor Zhang Dandan, which has since been deleted, argued that some 16 million non-students in this range are likely \u201clying flat\u201d\u2014a popular Chinese expression meaning to have given up efforts to work.<\/p>\n

This sky-high jobless rate has given companies that employ younger workers\u2014most notoriously tech firms\u2014extreme leverage over their employees. If one wants a job at all, he or she may be forced to work the \u201c996\u201d schedule\u20149 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.<\/p>\n

This leaves those who do choose the corporate life little time or energy for romantic pursuits. \u201cNo gym, no dates, no time for my own stuff,\u201d said Lee Wang, a 30-year-old project manager at one of China\u2019s leading gaming companies, which he asked not be named.<\/p>\n

Amid these work conditions lies a vast property market that is both unstable and out of reach for an increasing number of Chinese. Many young men were caught up in the recent spate of defaults among China\u2019s large developers, which left millions of already-purchased units unfinished, leaving the owners in limbo.<\/p>\n

A survey by university researchers taken just before the pandemic found that two-thirds of Chinese born after 1990 felt that owning a house was necessary for marriage.<\/p>\n

The pressure for male suitors to own a property even has a phrase, the \u201cmother-in-law economy\u201d\u2014meaning the requirement of the would-be bride\u2019s mother that the future husband own a home.<\/p>\n

A team of scholars from multiple Chinese business schools found that \u201cthe increasing price of houses, an important measure of marriage cost, has significantly reduced the marriage rate in China.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using 20 years of data, they found that for every 1,000 yuan ($140) increase in property prices per square meter, the marriage rate falls by 0.3%. With housing prices in large Chinese cities rivaling those in the west, such price increases put significant dents in the marriage rate, according to the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs housing prices continue to rise, many young people opt out of marriage because they cannot afford to buy a house,\u201d said study author Zhou Hongyong.<\/p>\n

So many Chinese have decided not to buy a home and remain unmarried that even if housing prices fall, the generational shift may have already cemented, a Chinese economist told local media in September.<\/p>\n

The government is in a difficult spot. It wants to boost the property market because rising prices means rising wealth for the hordes of Chinese who put their life savings in housing. But this would exacerbate the unattainability of purchasing property.<\/p>\n

Ripples have also been felt in areas effected by the marriage rate, such as fertility. After a two-year lag, birthrates began to fall at roughly the same rate. China now faces a demographic crisis, with a shrinking population that will have too few workers to support a vast number of elderly citizens. <\/p>\n

In 2001, China implemented legislation prohibiting unmarried women from any form of assisted reproductive technology (ART), including freezing one\u2019s eggs. Women have pushed back against the law, by going overseas in droves to freeze their eggs and by challenging the legality of the legislation.<\/p>\n

Last year, a Beijing court threw out a lawsuit from a women who said a hospital had refused to freeze her eggs because she was single. But officials may have taken notice. Other women have since filed suit.<\/p>\n

In March, the National Health Commission began formally seeking expert opinion on allowing egg-freezing and other ART procedures, a step usually taken before legislation is introduced.<\/p>\n

While foreign\u2014particularly American ART companies\u2014have benefited from this Chinese influx, a relaxation in the policy in China would mean a boon for the nascent fertility industry.<\/p>\n

Experts that Barron\u2019s<\/em> spoke to were skeptical that the government, or the private sector, could easily intervene, or had the willingness to do so, to reduce work hours and pressure in hopes of improving marriage and fertility rates. <\/p>\n

Not only are private companies reluctant to shrink working hours or take other employee-friendly measures because of cutthroat industry competitiveness, but firms could impede government from doing so, said Eli Friedman, chair of International and Comparative Labor at Cornell University who specializes in China.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government were to require fewer working hours without a reduction in wages\u2014which would be necessary for people to still afford living expenses in large cities\u2014you would see tremendous pushback from companies, as it would undermine a key tenet of their business model,\u201d he told Barron\u2019s<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Zhenchao Qian, professor of sociology at Brown University, said that long hours in the private sector aren\u2019t the primary reason for low fertility rates. Those who work in government or state sectors don\u2019t necessarily work long hours but still marry late and have fewer children, he pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably has more to do with the cost of raising children and poor job prospects even when children go to top tiered universities, that discourage marriage and fertility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The government right now views economic development as more urgent than addressing the marriage and fertility problem, experts said. But policy makers still need to engage but tread lightly. \u201cAs a more effective approach, the government can contribute by addressing cultural attitudes toward marriage and family, modifying laws and regulations to influence the costs and benefits of having children,\u201d said Haizheng Li, professor of economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n

Write to editors@barrons.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ally Liu, 27, graduated from Beijing\u2019s prestigious Peking University with bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in finance, and now works at an investment firm. She said she\u2019s exhausted from long hours at work. \u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing, but I\u2019ll just say it,\u201d she said in an interview from China\u2019s capital. \u201cI want to find a guy.\u201d After a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-41873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markets","tag-featured","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"yoast_head":"\nChina's Marriage Slump Takes a Toll on the Economy | iFintechWorld<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ally Liu, 27, graduated from Beijing\u2019s prestigious Peking University with bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in finance, and now works at an investment firm.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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