What happened to Chinese marriages when the divorce rate exploded?
In recent years, China has experienced serious demographic problems caused by Family planning, including fewer and older children and an imbalance in the ratio of men to women. Although the government has introduced new policies to encourage young people to get married and have children, the effect is minimal. China’s young generation, with its liberal mindset of “stay if you’re together, leave if you’re not”, has set a new record for divorce rates.
China’s recent demographic figures have caused the authorities a lot of headaches. According to the Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, China’s elderly population will exceed 300 million in the next five years. In addition to the fact that society is “getting older,” the birth, Marriage and divorce rates in 2020 are not promising.
China’s young people are marrying less and divorcing more
Last year, the number of newborns in China was 10.035 million, a record low since 1949; 8.131 million marriages were registered nationwide, down 12.2 percent from the previous year; and divorces soared from 580,000 in 1987 to 3.73 million by 2020.
The Associated Press recently reported that the concept of early marriage and childbirth, fierce competition, soaring housing prices, expensive childcare expenses, these huge pressures from the workplace, Life and family are testing the younger generation’s confidence in marriage, while the report quoted a divorcee as saying that, as today’s young people prioritize personal freedom, they no longer see divorce as a “failure They no longer see divorce as a “failure” but as a “relief”.
Wang Jian, a veteran media personality based in the United States, analyzed that China’s nearly four-decade old fertility policy has not only changed the demographic structure, but also people’s views on marriage.
“The marriageable age group is now the first group of children born to family planning Parents, so there are fewer people of marriageable age. Young people read more, after the undergraduate study also read graduate school, but also do not want to marry so early, so the marriage age is delayed, and the conditions for marriage increased, and the house, and the car, and the bride price.”
Wang Jian turned the tables and added that economic pressure is one of the straws that “crushes” modern marriage.
“The core problem is still the house. Two people, basically six wallets to buy a suite, the remaining money after the mortgage almost monthly, the fragility of the economic situation leads to the fragility of the family situation. One of the reasons for the rising divorce rate is the housing restrictions, two people divorced can buy a suite, many people he did not plan to buy a house, divorce first.”
Divorce and Marriage Licenses in China (Public Domain)
No more demographic advantage? Government moves to stimulate fertility
An article in the British journal The Lancet last year predicted that China’s population would be cut in half by 2100, falling behind India and Nigeria.
To alleviate the looming demographic crisis, governments across China have been “stepping up” to stimulate the baby boom, not only by considering a full liberalization of childbirth, but also by setting up marriage subsidies and offering counseling services to thousands of newlyweds and couples on the verge of divorce.
Zhu Shenyong, a marriage counselor in Shanghai, told the Associated Press that marriage counseling in China is like treating late-stage cancer.
Wang Jian joked that Chinese divorcees seem to have to go through an “ennui” to get divorced.
“Two people have become enemies, there are a bunch of financial interests in the head, and then involve a third party, let them go to mediation, how to do it?”
Divorce should not first “calm”?
At the same Time, from January 1 this year, the divorce “cooling off” period aimed at preventing impulsive divorce was also officially added to the divorce registration process, that is, within 30 days from the receipt of the divorce registration application by the marriage registration authority, either spouse does not want to divorce, can be withdrawn from the civil affairs department divorce registration application.
The New York Times recently reported that in the last three months of 2020, just before the divorce “cooling-off period” came into effect, there were more than one million divorce applications in China, an increase of 13 percent over the same period the previous year.
In addition to “boosting” the divorce rate, the rule has also generated a lot of public debate. While some commentators say that the “cooling-off period” provides a buffer zone for impulsive divorce and reflects a humanistic approach to justice, others worry that it will make divorce more difficult and may cause more harm to the weaker party in a marriage, such as victims of domestic violence.
Zhang Jing, founder of the U.S.-based civil society organization China Women’s Rights, blasted the Chinese government for its habitual interference in people’s lives.
“From the time you are born, what kind of ideas you should accept, what kind of books you should read, what kind of words you should say. When you grow up, what kind of marriage should you have; how many children should you have? How should you divorce? Before it was to contribute to the country to have less children, now you have to contribute to the country to have more children.”
She lamented that under China’s dysfunctional system, the abuse of public power to harm the people “keeps happening in different ways”.
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