City urged to establish official dating app

The government should establish an official platform to assist young people looking for a marriage partner and keen to have children, thereby solving the population growth issue to some extent, said Wu Wenqing, a Shanghai People's Congress deputy.

"The city-level platform will be more reliable than the current commercial dating websites with verified personal information and professional guidance," he told Shanghai Daily.

Wu said many commercial dating websites receive a large number of complaints every month about false information and high fees with little effect.

"Shanghai has established a data platform for elderly care by the government, and I think that it can be replicated in the marital aspect," he said.

Bai Kelin

Wu suggests data from the Suishenban app, the city government's public service platform, can be shared with the platform to ensure everyone who joins is single. Registrants can choose to fully or partially disclose their personal information out of individual privacy concerns.

Professional counselors can be invited to join the platform to help them establish a proper view of life and marriage. Relevant organizations can organize online and offline dating activities based on the platform, he suggested.

Sexual health and child-bearing knowledge can also be popularized on the platform, he added.

Wu said negative population growth was reported for the first time in China in 2022 with population possibly becoming a constraint on social development. Meanwhile, the age of first marriage in China has risen, from 24.89 years in 2010 to 28.67 in 2020.

"Lack of opportunities to interact with the opposite sex and cognitive biases toward marriage and relationships are two of the main reasons why young people are unwilling to get married," Wu said.

Dating platforms, as an important way for young people to make friends with the opposite sex, need to be regulated with the help of the government, Wu said.