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BRIDAL DIAMOND JEWELRY SALES STEADY,  DESPITE FALLS IN MARRIAGE RATES

 

It has been a basic in maxim in the diamond business for decades: fashions come and go, with what is “in” one year being “out” the next. But one thing remains constant – young people fall in love and get married. And when they do, they buy diamonds.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, about half of Americans ages 18 and older were married in 2017, which is a proportion that has remained relatively stable in recent years, but still is down 8 percentage points down since 1990. But it’s not necessarily a case that people are swearing off marriage, but rather that they are staying single longer. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median age at first marriage was 30 years for men and 28 years for women in 2018, the highest points on record.

 

The trend is evident also outside the United States. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics and the country’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, only 7.2 people out of every 1,000 got married in 2018, representing the lowest marriage rate since 2013. Here again, according to Shi Zhilei, a director with the Population and Health Research Center at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, the major reason for the decline is the shift towards people marrying later. Other contributing factors are China’s declining population and the rising cost of living.

Marriage rates differ considerably across OECD countries, with countries like Chile, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Slovenia reporting fewer than 3.5 marriages per 1,000 people per annum, while others, like Lithuania, Turkey and the United States report rates as high as 7 per 1,000 and above. The OECD average stands at 4.8.

But in almost all OECD countries, marriage rates have declined over the past few decades  In 1970, most reported annual rates of somewhere between 7 and 10 marriages per 1,000 people.

 

AVERAGE SPEND ON DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING

But it; not all bad news, for while marriage rates have slipped, when it comes to buying bridal jewelry, the average spend has increased quite considerably. Possibly the fact that people are getting married at a later age means that they have more money to lay out on an engagement or wedding ring.

According to a study conducted by Brides magazine in the United States, the amount bridal couples spent on their engagement rings increased from $5,023 in 2017 to $7,829 in 2018, which the publication said reflected a demand for more ornate setting styles and larger center stones.

The carefully-watched annual survey by The Knot reported that that the average spent on an engagement ring in the United States in 2018 was $5,680, unchanged from the $5,764 registered in 2017, which was down from $6,163 in 2016. But a study by Brides magazine stated that the amount bridal couples spent on their engagement rings increased from $5,023 in 2017 to $7,829 in 2018.

Changing customs in Indonesia were on display at the wedding of Teja Amanda and Putra Chintania . The dowry was involved a single diamond necklace and a portfolio mutual funds, which the young couple displayed to guests.

The Brides study may be an outlier. The most carefully followed annual bridal survey, which is conducted by The Knot, indicated that that the average spent on an engagement ring in 2018 was $5,680, unchanged from the $5,764 registered in 2017, which was down from $6,163 in 2016. 

In 2013, by way of measurement, the average spend on a diamond engagement ring was $5,341, according to The Knot survey.

 

DIAMONDS AS AN ASIAN DOWRY ALTERNATIVE

Diamond jewelry as a bridal tradition was largely a Western phenomenon prior to the 1960s when De Beers launched its now legendary marketing campaign in Japan. It saw the rate of Japanese brides getting married wearing diamonds rise from less than 5 percent in 1967 to about 60 percent in 1981.

China and India, both countries with populations significantly in excess of 1 billion, have diamond bridal jewelry rates around the 60 percent mark.

In these nations, as well as in other Asian countries, the act of buying diamonds when a woman gets married is often a break from the accepted custom. Bridal jewelry is not, however, for it traditionally has served as the dowry provided by the groom’s family, aimed to protect the bride in the event that the marriage ends prematurely. 

A similar percentage is also being reported today in India, where some 60 percent of Indian brides are also getting married wearing diamond jewelry. There, diamond-set items are replacing the pure gold jewelry that traditionally has been part of the dowry given by the groom’s family to the bride, as part of the wedding tradition.

 

In China, for example, to is common practice for the bride’s parents to request for betrothal jewelry, which is considered the mother-in-law’s welcome gift to the bride, but most often the jewelry is comprised mainly of gold.

But here traditions are changing as well. Dowries in the traditional sense, are now frowned upon in places like India, where up until the 1980s, according to various studies, could consume up to two thirds of a bride’s family’s assets. Anti-dowry laws were passed to discourage practices favoring male over female births.

A diamond engagement or wedding ring is considered by many today a more symbolic way of honoring the dowry tradition, without forfeiting the family’s future through the purchase of large volume of gold. 

The past March in West Sumatra in Indonesia, Teja Amanda and Putra Chintania got married at Padang State University. A dowry was involved, but this one included a single diamond necklace set, and a portfolio mutual funds provided by nine asset management companies.

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