In the best case, couples get married for romantic reasons, but sometimes money also plays a role – after all, married couples can save on taxes. In China, young women can even earn cash directly by getting married.

Changshan County in eastern China pays women who are 25 years old or younger at the time of marriage a cash reward of 1,000 yuan. The authorities want to motivate young people to get married earlier and have more children, reports the Reuters news agency. In addition, there should be better childcare and fertility treatments. Couples with children should also receive educational grants.

In China, women can only legally marry at the age of 20, for men the minimum age is even 22 years. In recent years, the number of couples who marry and have children in China has gradually fallen. This has an impact on the whole country: After decades of rapid growth, the population fell last year – for the first time in more than 60 years since the end of the Great Famine.

Since then, the government has been trying to motivate men and women to have more children. In 2016, the one-child policy, which for decades dictated that parents could only have one child, was officially scrapped. Married couples are now allowed to have up to three children. However, many women remain childless for a long time – partly because of the poor ability to combine family and work.

Quelle: Reuters / “South China Morning Post”

Watch the video: Ryan Dack dies just one day after the wedding – but before that his greatest wish has come true. After the doctors told the seriously ill man that there was nothing more they could do for him, he wanted to marry his girlfriend as soon as possible.