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Marriage Declines in China as Young Chinese Embrace Dating and Staying Single

Marriage Declines in China as Young Chinese Embrace Dating and Staying Single

(CTN News) – Traditional Chinese culture views the Qixi Festival, China’s version of Valentine’s Day, as a joyous occasion for marriage.

Qixi, a festival honouring the undying love of Chinese mythological characters Zhinu and Niulang, is held annually on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

With the holiday falling on the traditionally romantic day of August 22, a marriage registration office in Mianyang, Sichuan Province, decided to broadcast the ceremony.

There was only one catch, though. Spectators reported seeing a small number of couples really tie the knot.

The broadcast was cut off at some point.

Viewers online were treated to scenic vistas of Mianyang rather than an empty marriage registration office.

Later, local officials refuted rumours that only a few marriages were recorded on the big day.

It was too late by that point.

The vacant Mianyang marriage registration office went viral on Chinese social media and became a symbol of the country’s falling marriage rates.

Despite government programmes to encourage couples to marry and cultural expectations around matrimony, official numbers reveal that the marriage rate in China is plunging.

The average number of marriages dropped from 13.5 million in 2013 to roughly 6.8 million in 2017.

According to statistics, the Chinese population is marrying later, divorcing at a higher rate, and increasing its share of singles.

Many young Chinese say they can’t see themselves getting married because of how their lives are now structured.

“Marriage is kind of dying in China,” Yu Zhang, a 26-year-old Shanghai resident, told Al Jazeera.

Zhang and his partner of two years have discussed marriage several times, but they always come to the same conclusion: “The thought of getting married makes us more stressed than happy.” Zhang is a laboratory technician.

Marriage represents the coming together of two families, the purchase of a new home, and the beginning of a new family in their minds.

And those three objectives currently appear impossible to achieve.

“My mother and her parents don’t get along, the housing market is bad, and having a child is just too expensive,” Zhang said.

Zhang and his girlfriend may now go to their favourite restaurants and travel around China more freely once COVID-19 limitations were relaxed.

He argued that it would be impossible for the couple to conceive a family and make ends meet if they were to immediately begin saving for a home.

Local and national Chinese authorities have been attempting to convince Zhang and his girlfriend to get married, but they haven’t had much luck so far.

In May, pilot projects were announced in over 20 Chinese cities with the goal of encouraging marriage.

Last month, it was revealed that a county in China’s Zhejiang Province would begin providing monetary awards for weddings if the bride was 25 or younger. The “right age” for getting married and having children has also been publicly emphasised by officials.

Popular culture in China has also been mobilised. Recent trends in both television and fashion have highlighted the significance of having a spouse.

Guangzhou resident Jessica Fu thinks the government’s focus on marriage is related to its goal of increasing the birthrate.

The 31-year-old marketing coordinator told Al Jazeera, “Having children in Chinese society mostly happens within marriage.”

The falling birthrate in China has paralleled the falling marriage rate, creating the conditions for a demographic crisis in the country if the trend is not reversed soon.

However, Fu is unconvinced by contemporary culture’s glorification of married life or by government programmes designed to encourage couples to tie the knot.

I don’t like what marriage does to people in China,” she remarked.

Fu explained that, for as long as she can remember, both of her parents have been miserable in their marriage, but they have stuck it out because they believe divorce to be a socially unacceptable option.

“And then my cousin got married recently, and she is under a lot of pressure from her husband and in-laws to abandon her career and be a traditional Chinese woman,” she continued.

Fu said that she hopes to find a lifelong companion someday.

“But I choose not to get married,” she continued.

The “single economy” of China

According to Pan Wang, a senior lecturer in Chinese and Asian Studies at the University of New South Wales in Australia, the introduction of personal choice has altered the marriage dynamic in Chinese society.

“Married life is just one of many lifestyle options today,” Wang, author of Love and Marriage in Globalising China, told Al Jazeera.

According to Wang, China today has a flourishing “singles’ economy” that caters specifically to single people in every aspect of life, from buying home appliances to dining out to solitary entertainment to vacation packages.

Choosing to be single was less of a viable option for certain Chinese people in the past.

Numerous weddings were orchestrated not only by parents and families, but also by community elders, corporate bosses, and institutions.

“Love and marriage for previous generations was more of a communal affair than a personal choice,” Wang added.

However, during the 1990s, China liberalised and modernised, placing a greater emphasis on education for both men and women. This, together with extraordinary economic growth, radically altered Chinese culture.

As tens of millions of men and women followed the jobs to the growing metropolis, traditional communities began to break apart.

From 1980 until 2015, China enforced a one-child policy that caused many families with a historical bias towards boys to instead devote their time, energy, and resources on a single kid, who was often a female.

A new generation of Chinese women grew up in this fast modernising country, and they’re using their education to get ahead in the workplace and in life.

Chinese women have forged new paths in society and achieved financial stability that was previously available to them only through marriage.

Marriage “used to be the centrepiece of life but now it no longer has to be,” Mu Zheng, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, told Al Jazeera.

While government policies and economic growth have altered the economic circumstances and life options accessible to men and women in China, cultural norms have not shifted at the same rate, according to Zheng, who studies modern Chinese marriage and family dynamics.

Women are still expected to be good moms and husbands, while males are still considered as the primary breadwinners, despite the fact that both men and women are still required to work hard outside the family structure.

Zheng argues that modern youth nowadays feel stifled by such norms, while gender roles may discourage marriage for some individuals.

Young people in China are held to unrealistic standards, according to Shenzhen native Yuan Xu.

The COVID-19 outbreak caused the 25-year-old to lose her job at a Chinese computer business, and she is now managing the social media accounts of a local restaurant chain for longer hours and less pay.

“The economy is really bad right now for young Chinese people,” she said to Al Jazeera.

Xu remarked, “When I lost my job, I took whatever I could find,” and went on to explain that she only has one day off each week and that her salary is too low to allow her to save much.

The official rate of youth unemployment in China was 21.3% in June, an all-time high that has forced the government to stop reporting jobless statistics.

 

 

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

shkreli

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

shkreli

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

shkreli

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP

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