Indonesia’s falling marriage rate sparks concern about low fertility and ‘undesirable consequences’ on economy

“I keep getting all these wedding invitations,” the 60-year-old Surabaya resident said. Shaking his head adamantly, he added, “People will always wed and have children.”

Melissa Suryanti, 23, had a different response. “Of course, that’s to be expected these days. It’s expensive to start a family, so people either save up or try to sort out their careers first,” said the native of Malang, East Java.

Indonesia’s marked decline in marriage rates reflects stark shifts in socio-economic conditions, societal norms and demographic trends, analysts say, all of which have sparked concern among officials about the impact on the country’s fertility rate and economic future.

In its annual data release, published late last month, Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) highlighted an overall drop in the number of people getting married over the last six years, with the sharpest downturn occurring in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2018, the BPS recorded 2,016,171 marriages in Indonesia but in 2020 the number nosedived to 1,792,548. Last year, it only registered 1,577,255.

Ariane Utomo, a demographic researcher and lecturer at the University of Melbourne, said the trend was no secret within her field of study.

“Demographers have long known that fertility rates were steadily on the wane, and delayed entry into marriage – one reason why we see this declining number of registered marriages – is one of the contributing factors.”

She pointed out that Indonesia’s total fertility rate (TFR) had been hovering around the “replacement level” of 2.1 since 2022, noting that “all the available data suggests the downward trend is likely to continue”.

The TFR is a hypothetical measurement of the average number of children a woman can expect to