Luliang, China:
After the moments of registering their marriage, the Zhang Gang and Veng Linbin introduced a red background adorned with the symbol of a Chinese government, which excluding the cash received received as an incentive for the wedding. .
Zhang’s home city of Luliang in Northern Shanxi province is one of the several places in China, where local officials are offering motivated to cohabiting the joints in tying the knot.
The couple received by 1,500-ie ($ 205) is part of the official efforts to promote the country’s population, which fell for the third straight year in 2024.
According to official data, the amount is a half -month average wage for the urban population of Luliang – and exceeds the monthly average wage for its rural citizens.
“I think this policy is quite effective in improving the current marital and romantic situation,” Zhang told AFP.
“When I mentioned this policy to my friends, they thought it was great.”
Generally, however, officials are fighting a tide of reluctance from young people.
Last year, the marriage fell from the fifth as compared to 2023, showing the data released on Monday.
When it comes to having a child, experts say that high-cost is especially one of the discourse to parents in the challenging employment market for recent graduates-and for recent graduates.
When Luliang’s cash incentive for marriage was declared online, many commented that this amount would not be sufficient to justify commitment.
Reward-35 age is cut-off for women-only the largest part of the package.
The former mining city is also contributing subsidy and medical insurance to register newborns.
Married couples in Luliang have been given 2,000 yuan for their first registered child, 5,000 for their second and 8,000 for their third.
Wedding crowd?
On Wednesday, a Luliang Marriage Registry Office, a festival day, was taking advantage of a stable stream of couples, which kicked on 1 January.
The sound of an automatic money counter remains constant as the lovebirds were handed over a heap of the fresh 100-euan bills.
A registry official told AFP that since the New Year’s day, his office alone saw more than 400 couples receiving marriage certificates.
At one point the office went out of cash, 36 -year -old Wang Yanlong said, who came to collect his money this week after getting married in early January.
However, this clear wedding crowd may be misleading.
34 -year -old newly married Lee Yingxing said, “My colleagues who were preparing to get married next year decided to do so this year.”
Zhang and Veng said they were planning to get married earlier, but were waiting for the bonus, and another registrar in another Luliang district told AFP that many couples had done similarly.
Some good man
An advertisement for 1,500 -uan reward seats in the office of matchmaker Feng Euping in Luliang amid testimony to happy customers.
Most of her customers are women, but 48 -year -old, were pessimists about the possibilities of those who also found a husband with new incentives.
“A person working in a state -owned venture may have a bachelor’s degree, but would not even see a girl with a master’s degree in civil service,” Feng said.
“There are still a lot of problems with men’s perspectives towards marriage.”
Feng said that women are often better educated with good jobs, but are rejected due to their age.
Some are completely closing marriage.
“Women now have their stable income,” Feng said. “They are less interested in getting married. And there are no good men.”
The result has declined in the population of Luliang.
“Birth rate has fallen seriously,” Feng said, citing examples of the closure of kindergarten due to lack of demand.
Extensive encouragement
Luliang’s prediction is common in China, with aging population with a major bias of Beijing.
The government released a report in the October listing incentive, which is similar to Luliang
The report states that the Shangyou County in Jiangxi province is giving cash prizes for each family, with the second or third child.
Meanwhile, subsidy that can reach about 165,000 yuan for families with three children in Tianmen, Hubei province was credited by media with a decline in birth rates last year – although the data is still limited.
In Luliang, even those who said that new measures could encourage more couples to consider that they were secondary to the decisions of people to marry or not.
“The cost of marriage for young people is actually very high, and this is a factor,” Zhang said.
“However, I believe that as long as the young people are in love, they will essentially walk down the corridor together.”
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
