Nowadays more Asian women are rejecting marriage and pursuing a single life, which will create serious social problems, according to an article in The Economist on August 20, 2011.

Marriage rates are falling in Asia, says the article, partly because people are postponing getting hitched. People in Asia now marry even later than they do in the West, with the mean age of marriage in the richest places—Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong—being 29-30 for women and 31-33 for men.

A lot of Asians are not marrying at all, notes the article. "Almost a third of Japanese women in their early 30s are unmarried; probably half of those will always be. Over one-fifth of Taiwanese women in their late 30s are single; most will never marry. In some places, rates of non-marriage are especially striking: in Bangkok, 20 percent of 40-44-year old women are not married; in Tokyo, 21 percent; among university graduates of that age in Singapore, 27 percent."

Women are retreating from marriage, partly because, for a woman, being both employed and married is tough in Asia, says the article. As the primary caregivers for husbands, children and, often, for ageing parents, Asian women are carrying a particularly heavy burden. "Japanese women, who typically work 40 hours a week in the office, then do, on average, another 30 hours of housework. Their husbands, on average, do three hours." And it is always hard for Asian women who give up work to look after children to return when the offspring are grown.

Also, more education has also contributed to the decline of marriage, because a single life may appeal more to Asian women with the most education than the drudgery of a traditional marriage.

While the flight from marriage in Asia shows the greater freedom that women enjoy these days, the article cautions, it will create social problems. The decline of marriage is beginning to cause huge demographic problems, as populations age with startling speed. "Fertility in East Asia has fallen from 5.3 children per woman in the late 1960s to 1.6 now. In countries with the lowest marriage rates, the fertility rate is nearer 1.0." And as marriage socializes men, less marriage might mean more crime.