The "trans provincial general office" in Beijing and Guangdong accounts for the majority, and more than 134000 couples are married on Qixi Festival
This year's Qixi Festival is the first peak after the expansion of the pilot program of "trans provincial general office" for marriage registration of mainland residents. According to the statistics released by the China Social Daily on August 24, as of 24:00 on August 22, 2023, there were 134588 marriage registrations nationwide on the day of Qixi Festival, including 3558 "trans provincial" marriage registrations.
Pengpai News noticed that Guangdong and Beijing accounted for 70.01% of the 3558 marriage registrations completed through the "inter provincial communication".
Among them, on Qixi Festival, there were 7849 marriage registration pairs in Guangdong Province, and 1608 marriage registration pairs were "cross provincial general office". A total of 2802 marriage registrations have been processed in Beijing, of which 883 cases have been processed through cross provincial procedures.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the number of marriage registrations in several provinces on Qixi Festival this year has soared compared with that on Qixi Festival last year. For example, a total of 8985 couples registered in Sichuan Province, 2349 more than last year's Qixi Festival, an increase of 35.4%. A total of 9198 couples in Hebei Province registered their marriages throughout the day, a sharp increase over the 6269 couples on Qixi last year.
When explaining the increase in the number of marriage registrations on Qixi Festival this year, civil affairs departments in some regions mentioned that this is the first "Qixi Festival" after the pilot project of expanding the "trans provincial" marriage registration for mainland residents. With the growing popularity and attention of Chinese traditional festivals, more and more couples are selected to register on Qixi Festival. This year, Qixi Festival falls on Tuesday, August 22, which is even more joyful and more auspicious.
Demographic expert He Yafu analyzed to Interface News that the changes in the number of marriages on several special dates in recent years are mainly related to specific dates. This year's Qixi falls on August 22nd, Tuesday, 22nd and Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. It has two meanings, meaning auspicious; While last year's Qixi Festival was on August 4, some people were more concerned, so this may be an important reason for the large gap in the number of marriages between this year's Qixi Festival and last year's Qixi Festival. In addition, he also mentioned that the number of registered marriages on May 20th this year has significantly decreased compared to the same period last year, which is also related to May 20th being a Saturday.
He Yafu emphasized that due to the continuous decline in population structure, especially among women of childbearing age, and changes in attitudes towards marriage and childbirth, the decline in marriage rates and registration numbers will be the trend. However, it is not ruled out that the number of registered marriages will increase year-on-year on certain days or in the short term. Compared to the changes in marriage data on individual dates, he believes that more attention should be paid to the trend of continuous decline in the number of marriages and the severe population situation behind it.