Chinese villages offer cash rewards to matchmakers as anxieties grow over rural ‘bachelor crisis’

Local governments across China announce incentives of up to US$140 for those who help unmarried men find wives
The country has about 30 million unmarried men, and some policymakers worry the imbalance will affect stability and development in countryside

China's population

He Huifengin Guangdong

Published: 4:52pm, 27 Jan 2024

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Local governments in China are offering cash rewards and other incentives to matchmakers, an ancient profession now back in the spotlight amid anxieties over rural unmarried men.

Village governments across the country, from Guangdong province in the south to Shaanxi in the northwest, have announced rewards ranging from 600 to 1,000 yuan (US$84 to US$140) for matchmakers if they introduce women to unmarried men aged 30 and above and the pair eventually marry in the village, Chinese news site The Paper reported on Saturday.

Most of the incentive programmes will start in January or February, according to the report.

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From January 1, the village council of Xiangjiazhuang in Shaanxi province will give 1,000 yuan to those who introduce an unmarried man to a woman he eventually marries. The village is home to about 270 households and more than 40 unmarried men between the ages of 25 and 40, according to the report.

According to China’s 2020 census, the country has 722 million men and 690 million women, with the gender imbalance most prominent among those born during the one-child policy from 1980-2015.

In 2021, the gender ratio in rural areas was about 108 men for every 100 women, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

That leaves China with about 30 million unmarried men, a surplus that some policymakers fear could affect social stability and economic development.

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The problem is more pronounced in rural areas where the preference for boys over girls is more deeply ingrained and many women leave to work in the cities, according to Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies Chinese demographics.

In recent years, deputies to the National People’s Congress and political advisers at various levels have proposed measures to address the difficulties rural men face in finding wives.

“Simple cash incentives can’t possibly solve the bachelor crisis in rural China,” Yi said.

“The high rate of youth unemployment nowadays also contributes to the low marriage rate. Young men cannot afford to support their families, so of course they cannot afford to get married.

“Now that China’s local governments are in a debt crisis, it is difficult for the authorities to introduce higher incentives to promote fertility, let alone marriage.”

China reported a population drop for the second consecutive year in 2023, along with a record-low birth rate.

The population of mainland China fell by 2.08 million last year to 1.4097 billion, down from 1.4118 billion in 2022, according to figures released by the NBS earlier this month.

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“I think even young women from rural areas are not interested in getting married despite the current marriage and childbirth [incentive] policy,” said Yang Zi, a migrant worker from central China in her late 20s who works at a hair salon in Guangzhou.

“I want to live in a rich and developed area. A rural young man can’t offer the lifestyle I want.”

Gen Z women in China are significantly less willing to get married than their male peers. According to a 2021 Communist Youth League survey of 2,905 unmarried urban youths aged 18 to 26, 43.9 per cent of women said they did not want to get married or were unsure about marriage, while just 24.6 per cent of men responded the same way.

China’s Generation Z has the biggest gender ratio imbalance of any age group, with 18.27 million more men than women.