(Yicai) March 18 -- The number of marriage registrations on the Chinese mainland surged by 12.3 percent last year from the year before, in the first gain in over 10 years, according to the latest data.

Some 7.7 million couples tied the knot in 2023, 850,000 more than in 2022, according to figures released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on March 15. The figure has been tumbling since the peak of 13.5 million marriages in 2013.

There was a more than 10 percent leap in the number of wedding last year as many couples who had put off getting hitched during the Covid-19 pandemic finally took their vows, Dong Yuzheng, a population expert at the advisory office under the Guangdong province government, told Yicai. Also, due to the restrictions on going out, less people were dating during the pandemic and there were fewer match-making activities.

The jump in weddings is likely to lead to more babies being born this year, which is the Year of the Dragon, a mythical creature believed to represent power and wealth. Already there has been a big jump in babies being born after the Spring Festival last month, according to hospital data.

Eleven more babies were born in Xiangshan county, eastern Zhejiang province in the month following the Lunar New Year from the same period after last year’s Spring Festival, which was the year of the rabbit, at 165 newborns.

But the increase in the number of marriages last year and the rise in the birth rate this year will only have a short-term effect in terms of increasing fertility rates, Dong said. In order to really boost the birthrate, the government needs to be more proactive in supporting fertility and in easing the financial burdens of giving birth to and raising children.

China’s birth rate has been on the decline for almost 40 years since reaching a peak in 1987. This means that the number of young people of marriageable age is also sliding and they are getting married later. In 2020, the average age for getting hitched for the first time was 28-and-a-half years old, according to the China Population Census Yearbook 2020. This is almost four years later than in 2010.

Editors: Xu Wei, Kim Taylor