After a whole decade of increases in the national marriage rate, China witnessed its second year of decline in the number of newly registered unions in 2015, with a 6.3% drop from 2014 and 9.1% from 2013. This was accompanied by a rise in the age of marriage, which has increased by about a year and a half in the first ten years of this century. [...]
While the traditional practice of arranged marriage has been illegal in China since the 1950s, parents remain heavily involved in their children’s marital decisions. Many Chinese parents relentlessly try to persuade their children to enter wedlock through much-dreaded interrogations during festive family gatherings. [...]
The Chinese government hasn’t sat idly by either. In 2007, the Ministry of Education publicly shamed women who were 27 years or older as “leftover women”, urging them to lower “unrealistic” standards during their search for a partner. While still alive and well in the public discourse to refer to both genders, the term “leftover” has been criticised by scholars and resisted by young women.
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