The number of new marriages recorded in China fell to a record low last year, despite sweeping government efforts to encourage young people to tie the knot and have babies to halt demographic decline in the world’s second-largest economy.

Marriages in China plummeted by a fifth last year, the biggest drop on record, despite manifold efforts by authorities to encourage young couples to wed and have children to boost the country's declining population.

After seven years of decline, China's birth rate ticked slightly upward last year, a shift analysts have attributed to the end of strict COVID lockdowns the year before and 2024 being a Year of the Dragon—an auspicious sign in the lunar zodiac.