(Yicai) Dec. 29 -- More than one in four Chinese people in their 30s was not married last year, according to the latest official data.

Nearly 28 percent of Chinese people aged between 30 and 39 were unmarried in 2022, according to the China Population and Employment Statistical Yearbook 2023.

The unmarried rate for people aged 30 to 34 was 18.4 percent, while that for people aged between 35 and 39 was 8 percent, the yearbook data also showed. The percentages for those between 25 and 29 and between 40 and 44 years old were 51.3 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

The average age of first marriage in China rose to 28.67 in 2020 from 24.89 in 2010, according to previously released official data.

The people born after the 1990s who are of marriageable and childbearing age grew up and worked in urban areas, so they have more years of education and greater pressure to find jobs, Yang Jinrui, deputy director of the National Health Commission’s population surveillance and family development department, previously told Yicai.

Young people in big cities have highly independent lives, which also affects the marriage rate, said Ding Changfa, associate professor for economics at Xiamen University.

Editor: Futura Costaglione