Increasingly more young adults in China register wills that include virtual assets

A woman born in the 1990s registers her will at a will registration center in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province. (Photo/Cai Minjie)

People registering wills in China are increasingly getting younger, with 223 will registrants between 2020 and 2021 being those born after 2000, according to a white paper released by the China Will Registration Center (CWRC) on March 21.

By the end of 2021, the CWRC had registered about 220,000 wills over the past nine years since its establishment, with the average age of registrants dropping down to 68.59 years old from the 77.43 years old mark recorded at the beginning of operations. Among those wills registered at the center, 4,707 have already been put into effect.

In the wills registered by young adults born after 2000, personal bank deposits and virtual property were the main assets of concern, according to the CWRC.

In comparison with registrants from other age groups, younger registrants’ wills tended to be more focused on virtual types of property, such as Alipay, WeChat, QQ and gaming accounts.

According to Li Xinyue, director of a service center with the CWRC based in south China’s Guangdong Province, these kinds of virtual assets play an important role in strengthening the emotional bonds between younger registrants and their family members. “After they pass away, their family members can operate their accounts on behalf of them,” Li explained.

Chen Kai, director of the CWRC’s management committee, introduced that the majority of the young registrants were university students aged between 18 and 20 years old.