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.

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.