Every official event has its own speech, but this time the banners are pink and not red, and the slogans give way to romanticism. “Let passion flourish, says Huang Jilai, an executive from Changxing canton in front of around fifty young people gathered in a picnic area at the edge of a lake. Harvest love to make life more intense, more beautiful, sweeter. »
Spring has arrived in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, and local politicians hope that the wonderful blossoming of peach trees will be conducive to meetings. On this last weekend of March, it is the official union, associated with the Women’s Federation and the Communist Youth League, which is organizing three hours of activities bringing single girls and boys together – circle games, tied wrists with a pink string, picking flowers: everything is done to get closer.
Marriage incentives
A form of speed dating organized by the party state, in response to the demographic decline that China is now facing. For the second year in a row, China’s population fell in 2023, surpassed by that of India. The fertility rate, around 1.1 children per woman in 2021, is well below the 2.1 needed to maintain the population. As in the developed economies of Northeast Asia – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan – urbanization, the cost of living and the desire to provide the best education dissuade couples from having more children. .
Added to this is a Chinese specificity: the same State which, today, encourages people to found a family, imposed the one-child policy with prohibitive fines and forced abortions to accelerate the demographic transition, from 1980 to 2016. In Wuhan, the artist who had been commissioned to create a statue of a happy couple with a child, installed in a park along the Yangzi River, had to redo his work to add two toddlers. The consequences of an aging population – risk of a drop in productivity, major problem of pension financing – are already widely documented and worry leaders.
Faced with demographic findings, the authorities are encouraging the Chinese to get married. In 2023, 7.68 million Chinese couples said yes, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, an increase of 12.4%, the first in nine years. Floral arrangements, musical entertainment, creation after the event of a group on the social network WeChat so that participants can contact each other again: Huang Jilai, responsible for ensuring that the policies of the central government are well applied in the canton of Changxing, spared no effort. “Young people are focused on their work, in the office or in the factory, and starting a family is no longer the priority for them”deplores Mr. Huang.
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