China offers 30 days' paid "marriage leave" to boost tumbling birth rate

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• Feb 22, 2023 | Dhupali Das

The country is scrapping its traditional three-day minimum paid marriage leave and is now giving young newlyweds a paid marriage leave of...

Digital Desk: Chinese provinces are changing their marriage leave culture as the country struggles to find solutions to its declining birth rate, which is also harming the country's economy. The country is scrapping its traditional three-day minimum paid marriage leave and is now giving young newlyweds a paid marriage leave of 30 days, the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily Health said on Tuesday. 

This massive change is intended to encourage young couples to marry and have children. China hopes that by giving newlyweds a month's leave, it will be able to reverse the country's plummeting birth rate.

While some provinces provide 30 days of marriage leave, others have reduced it to about 10 days. Gansu and Shanxi provinces are providing 30 days, while Shanghai is providing 10 and Sichuan is still providing three, said media portal.

According to Yang Haiyang, dean of the Social Development Research Institute at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, "Extending marriage leave is one of the effective means of improving the fertility rate."  "Marriage leave is being extended mostly in provinces and cities with relatively slow economic development," he added.

China's population has declined since the government implemented the infamous one-child policy between 1980 and 2015. China recorded its lowest-ever birth rate of 6.77 births per 1,000 people in 2022. Prior to this, China's population was reduced in 1961. It was during a famine, tens of millions of people died across the country. Demographic shifts are increasingly related to financial consequences for any country.

With a falling birth rate, the country is also confronted with a record-setting rate of population aging. The impact on China's economy will be felt as its workforce continues to decline. The one-child policy has since been repealed, but there are other factors at play too, such as shifting attitudes toward marriage and family among Chinese youth, gender inequality, and the economic hardships of having children.