• Parents buy AI-Generated videos to encourage children to marry
• Videos feature single women regretting not marrying

Some parents in China have purchased AI-generated video clips showing middle-aged single women expressing regret over not marrying and not having children, aiming to encourage their children to marry and start families.

These videos are circulating on short-video platforms, depicting women crying in hospital-like settings, conveying feelings of loneliness and remorse over past life choices.

In one clip, a 58-year-old woman expressed her sorrow over not marrying in her youth and not having children, noting that she has to go to hospitals alone.

Another woman said she ignored her parents’ advice to marry and have children, and now regrets it, according to the video publisher, who stated that she is from Gansu Province in northwestern China.

The clips also show people silently observing the women in hospital corridors. Some videos highlight the “DINK” lifestyle—dual-income, no kids couples—emphasizing the sense of loneliness felt by the women compared with families caring for other patients beside them.

Although labeled as AI-generated, the videos are widely circulated, especially among parents with unmarried children, with some viewing them as educational tools to guide youth. Others have mocked the content, pointing out that women in their fifties appear younger than their actual age, and that marriage and having children are not the only paths to happiness.

This phenomenon comes amid declining marriage rates in China, where the country recorded its lowest number of marriages since 1980 last year, with the population decreasing for the third consecutive year, despite a rise in births to 9.54 million compared with 9.02 million the previous year, reflecting a generational gap between youth lifestyles and older generations’ beliefs about marriage and family.