China's marriage rate is cratering, and the real culprit isn't changing culture — it's money, with huge financial demands pricing millions of men out of getting married.

• Chinese marriages have dropped by more than half since 2013, hitting record lows again in 2026, with weddings increasingly treated as a financial transaction rather than a romantic one.
• A traditional "bride price" payment from the groom's family has exploded in cost, now often equal to years of a family's income, on top of requirements for an apartment and car.
• Decades of a one-child policy and a preference for sons left tens of millions more men than women, so the shortage of brides lets families demand even higher payments, especially from poorer men.
• Government price caps and campaigns have mostly failed since the real market rate is set by millions of individual families, not officials.
• The fallout is spreading through the economy — jewelry and wedding businesses are shutting down, kindergartens are closing, and births hit their lowest level since 1949, while spending shifts toward a booming "single person" economy.

Outlook: Without a way to lower the real cost of marriage, China's marriage and birth rates are likely to keep falling, deepening the country's demographic and economic squeeze.