The threat of a demographic crisis is growing in China as latest figures reveal a drop in marriage registrations for the first nine months of 2024.

Despite a "sweeping government campaign to boost matrimony and encourage births", said CNN, marriages and births are both "plummeting", posing a "major challenge" for China's leaders.

How much have marriage rates fallen?
A total of 4.74 million Chinese couples registered their marriages in the first three quarters of 2024, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, a decline of 16.6% from 5.69 million in the same period last year.

The latest figures are "consistent with a falling trend" since 2013, when more than 13 million marriages took place, said CNN. That has knock-on effects – the birth rate in 2023 was the lowest since the founding of the People's Republic, in 1949.

What's behind the decline?
"Growing economic uncertainty and rising living costs" have "forced" many young couples to delay marriage, said Reuters. Getting married and starting a family has become a "heated subject" among young Chinese people, and many are choosing to wait because of "poor job prospects and worries about the future".

The "stubborn downward trend" also reflects changing attitudes among young women, who are becoming "more educated and financially independent" and are growing "disillusioned with marriage".

"Decades of policies" designed to limit China's population growth are another factor, said CNN. The result is fewer young people of marriageable age.

What's being done about it?
Local and national authorities across China have been trying a "slew" of measures to "bolster its sagging population levels", said Reuters.

A pro-marriage campaign in the southern city of Changsha included a "marriage-themed" street displaying pink slogans such as "I enjoy making breakfast" and "Having three children is the coolest". The display ignited "widespread controversy", said the South China Morning Post.

Other schemes have been more practical. From next year, the city of Lüliang, in Shanxi province, will offer a "cash reward" of 1,500 yuan (£162) to couples registering their marriage, as long as the woman is 35 years old or younger, said Global Times.

"Social media is doing harm to our kids, and I'm calling time on it," said Australia's prime minister today, announcing proposals for world-first legislation banning children under 16 from social media.

Anthony Albanese's ban would not exempt children under 16 already on social media, even if they have parental consent, as concerns grow over harmful or dangerous content and adverse effects on youth mental health. His government will introduce the legislation by the end of the year, with the onus on tech companies to enforce an eventual ban.

'Double the risk of depression and anxiety'
Australia's young people are among the most connected in the world, with about 97% using social media across an average of four platforms. Yet more than half of Australians feel lonely every week, according to a survey by Medibank's Loneliness Population Index. Among lonely 16-24-year-olds, social media was the "top answer" for why, said the Herald Sun. 

It is "increasingly clear that the more time youth spend online, the higher the risk of mental health problems", said The Associated Press. Studies suggest that kids who use social media for more than three hours a day face "double the risk of depression and anxiety".

'Opposite of what we'd recommend'
Most participants of a round table by the American Psychological Association on the subject agreed that banning children was "not an effective solution". More than 140 experts in technology and child welfare wrote to Albanese criticising the restriction as "too blunt an instrument".

Enforcing it will be "extremely challenging", said Lisa M. Given, professor of information sciences at RMIT University, on The Conversation. Reviewing existing accounts to verify age is "a technological nightmare". The ban won't do anything to "force social media companies to eliminate harmful content".

No such age restrictions have succeeded anywhere in the world, because young people can evade them with virtual private networks (VPNs) that hide location and information. But experts warn a ban could cut off refugee, LGBTQ+ and other minority youths from essential "social support", and even exacerbate mental health issues. "The ban is pretty much the opposite of what we would recommend," Amelia Johns, professor of digital media at Sydney's University of Technology, told Reuters.

"Paying visitors" will be able to walk into Buckingham Palace "the same way as guests at garden parties and royal receptions" from next year, said The Telegraph, as the royal residence prepares to open its front gates to tourists in a historic first.

The move follows the decision earlier this year to open the palace's East Wing to the public for the first time since it was built 175 years ago, drawing a record-breaking number of visitors.

Traditionally, the public could only tour the State Rooms, and the palace is typically closed during the winter months. But next year East Wing tours will continue from January to May, as part of King Charles' initiative to give the public greater access to the monarchy's headquarters.

The Royal Collection Trust is offering a 90-minute guided tour for £90, which will include views of the central balcony and Victoria Memorial and provide an in-depth history of the wing's rooms.

The tours will wind through the 240ft-long principal corridor, through the yellow drawing room and the centre room. "Highlights" of the centre room include a glass chandelier resembling a lotus flower and two Chinese 18th-century imperial silk wall hangings, said the Daily Mail.

The trust also announced new £1 tickets to Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse for 2025, in a further move to improve the accessibility of the royal residences. The reduced entrance fee will be available between January and April to people receiving Universal Credit.

In America, women are disposable
Jill Filipovic in The New Statesman
The US election was "about a lot of things", writes Jill Filipovic, but it was "fundamentally" about men and women. A "uniquely awful man" defeated an "exceptional woman". "Millions have chosen" to ignore or accept that a Trump presidency means "women will die because they became pregnant" and "girls raped by male family members will simply have to become mothers". There is "acute pain" in "the knowledge that more than half of your country believes women are disposable".

While the world’s eyes were elsewhere, Netanyahu fired his defence minister – the consequences will be huge
Alon Pinkas in The Guardian
As Israel deals with a "two-theatre war in Gaza and Lebanon" and a "spiralling military engagement with Iran", writes former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas, the prime minister has dismissed his defence minister, former general Yoav Gallant, and replaced him with Israel Katz, a "career politician" with "zero" defence credentials. Benjamin Netanyahu has "delusions of grandeur", but he may be "underestimating the extent of the domestic uproar and fury" building over his latest gamble.

Olaf Scholz calls time on Germany's traffic-light coalition
Lisa Haseldine in The Spectator
"More instability" is on the cards for Germany after Chancellor Olaf Scholz brought Berlin's "traffic-light coalition crashing down", writes Lisa Haseldine. With the country now "probably off to the polls", this is "swiftly morphing into a larger crisis" for Scholz – "one of his own leadership". Having previously "refused to entertain the suggestion" of January elections, he "will be peeved" that by bringing down the coalition, "he will be forced to hold them early anyway".