(Yicai) Oct. 16 -- The number of marriages registered in China last year plunged for the ninth consecutive year to a new record low since 1986, when the country began recording the figure.

A total of 6.8 million couples got married in China last year, down 10.6 percent from the previous year and 53 percent from the peak of 14.5 million in 2013, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

One of the main reasons behind the decline in marriage registrations was the much higher age at which couples first tied the knot.

The number of couples getting married at the age of 20 to 24 years old accounted for only 15.2 percent of the total last year, down 1.3 percentage points from 2021, 20.3 percentage points from 2012, and 22.4 points from the peak in 2010, data from the civil affairs ministry also showed.

The percentage of couples getting married at the age of 25 to 29 to the total rose 2 percentage points to 37.2 percent last year from the previous one, remaining above 35 percent for more than a decade.

The number of couples tying the knot at 30 to 34 accounted for 20.7 percent of the total, up 9.4 percentage points from 2010. The figure for those aged between 35 and 39 years old rose 2.5 points to 9.1 percent in the period.

Meanwhile, the percentage of couples getting married at the age of 40 or above fell to 17.7 percent last year but was 4.8 percentage points higher than in 2010.

The majority of the population born after the 1990s, which is the major group for marriage and childbearing, grew up and work in urban areas, so it is normal for them to delay getting married and having children because they studied longer and face greater competition in employment that the previous generations, said Yang Jinrui, deputy director-general of the Department of Population Surveillance and Family Development at the National Health Commission of China.

The decline in the population of marriageable age is another factor that caused marriage registrations in China to fall last year. The country’s newly-born population has been falling since hitting its peak in 1987, according to official data. Now that citizens born after 1995 are entering the marriageable age, the percentage of the population of marriageable age is shrinking.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione