For Chinese, September 9, whose Chinese pronounciation is a homophone of “forever”, is a lucky day for marriage. However, data from the National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Civil Affairs shows that, nationally, the marriage rate in 2018 was only 7.2%, the lowest in the past decade.

The post-90s generation, who are now in their 20s, traditionally seen as the best time for marriage, are taking a relaxed attitude towards setting up a family, which is causing many of their parents to fret.

The independence of personality, the more limited social circle, the rising pressure of work and extremely high house prices and living costs have lead to this difference in attitude for the post-90s generation.

50 dates but no chemistry

Xiao Mu, 26, from Taizhou in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, chose to work for her town’s government after graduation. “I thought that working near home would lower my life pressure, but I didn’t expect it to be the beginning of a nightmare,” said Mu. “In the countryside, if you are not married at the age of 25, you will be pointed at by the people around you. When you return home, your parents will keep grumbling on this matter.”

Since 2016, Mu has been on a date no less than 50 times with the craziest being 7 cinema dates in one week. But it has still been too difficult to find electricity with someone.

Hard to receive both material goods and love

Xiao Yang, from Nanjing, graduated with a Master’s from a famous university in Beijing this year. She now works for a private finance company. “I want to find someone who has a marriage house in Nanjing, and is better than me. On this basis, we must have love,” said Yang. In her opinion, getting married will lower her life quality, so she must consider the partner’s material status. She said that when she was in university, she had a relationship with a man who had only a college degree and possessed 5 houses.“The man was kind. We were together for half a year and liked each other. I did not discriminate against his [lower] academic credentials. However, we always had no common ground,”told Yang.

Social circle too small to get acquainted with men

For Xiao Nan, an outgoing lady from Henan who majored in Chinese in university, from undergraduate to postgraduate study, the proportion of male students to female students in herclass was seriously out of tune.“There wasn’t even one male student in my postgraduate class. Every day,the peopleI spend time with are only my roommates. The males I am seeing everyday are only the stars --- Kun, Li Xian, and Karry on my mobile phone.I am willing to get married, but there is nobody for me!”said Nan.