Marriage rates are going down in China | Hacker News Reader

Marriage rates are going down in China

forbes.com

29 pointsrandomname213 comments

Well I've been here for 17 years and I personally know a lot of people who aren't considering marriage as they aren't considered marriageable as they can't afford a house and don't want to work soul-draining hours for substandard pay.

The two Chinas: affluent business owners, government beneficiaries, and a small ultra-professional and investing class versus the average joe are really far apart.

This means for young people the choices are stark: relax with your friends, maybe make some money now and then or flutter between jobs you see as more of a passing interest or do something small for cash (part time work, online selling, art, piecework translation or media, etc.), taking the ire of your parents who wished you would work harder, or face a truly depressing grind and probably move alone to a polluted overpriced east coast megacity.

I don't think the choices are as bad in western countries, since although the work ethic may be high the hours in China are long and unpaid overtime and deference to managers is certainly expected for the upwardly mobile. Also in the west you usually don't have to move for a decent income, with the social isolation that entails.

There are also a small but increasing number of gay and lesbian couples.

I'll never get the whole "wait until you can afford to be married" thing because isn't one of the great advantages of marriage the joining of two incomes and the lessening of personal expenses (sharing expenses means less per person)?

As long as you have the money to pay for the wedding, sure.

In my case, my fiancée and I are not doing a traditional wedding; we're just registering in a courtroom, and then having a big party with a rented venue, etc. It's still going to cost a few grand.

Marriage is not cheap.

Sounds a lot similar to young people in the west

>as they aren't considered marriageable as they can't afford a house

It's hard to imagine that this belief is somehow more deeply rooted than pair-bonding. I can understand homeownership being an advantage relative to other men, but will women really rather give up on marriage than marry renters?

Your treating marriage as an advantage rather than a risk to be offset.

If employees are capable of generating that revenue independent of the organization/management, why haven’t they?

There’s no “ownership of the means of production” argument when you are the means of production.

wow, you really nailed it in a nutshell.

The graphs say 13m declined to 11.xm

so this is a 10% decline over 5 years. the rate of divorce increased more rapidly in % terms. So, the problem may not be 'does not want to get married' as much as 'does not want to get married under duress, to the wrong person, for the wrong reasons'

Not a lot to see here. Pretty much says women becoming more independent, birth rates down, aging population. So same as most other places.

The reasons why women in China are becoming independent are quite different from their counterparts in the West.

Sure, but I don't think the article really communicates the nuances of this very well. I imagine the article would be a lot longer if you hoped to communicate the details to an audience outside of China

Basically "China is growing up and is growing developed nation values within its citizens"

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