Comparison of China's Marriage and Divorce Rates

The divorce rate in all provinces of China has been released, and the average divorce rate is as high as 39.33%.1 "Chinese people have always been conservative, and will not divorce easily after getting married" is what we often hear, but is this really the case?

In recent years, with the development of the economy, China's divorce rate has increased year by year, more and more couples choose to divorce. According to relevant data, China since 2013, the number of marriages has been declining year after year, and from 2010 to 2019, the divorce rate has been growing year after year growth, and the divorce rate has only declined from 2019 to 2020.

In 2020, the number of marriage registrations*** counted 8,143,300 pairs in official statistics, a decrease of 1.13 million pairs compared to 2019, and there were 8,126,000 pairs of divorce registrations in official statistics, a decrease of 361,600 pairs compared to 2019.

The divorce rate for 2020 is out for all provinces in the country, and the national average divorce rate is as high as 39.33 percent, which means that every ten couples in the country get married at the same time there are four couples getting divorced.

2020, China's Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces ranked the top three in the divorce rate, Jilin Province, the divorce rate is as high as 71.51%, Heilongjiang Province and Liaoning Province, followed by 67.16% and 65.83%, respectively, Ningxia, Gansu, and Tibet provinces in the bottom of the divorce rate.

In 2020, the highest divorce rate in Tianjin, Chongqing, Guizhou, the lowest is the three provinces are Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanxi.

Why have so many couples chosen to divorce in recent years? What exactly is the marriage killer?

First of all, the main reason is the trivialities of life. After getting married, couples often have different concepts that lead to all sorts of trivialities in life, and these trivialities often become the biggest reason for their divorce.

The second reason is separation. Because of work reasons, many couples do not live together, the two living apart for too long will lead to loneliness, feelings fade, once there is no emotional support for a marriage is difficult to have a happy ending.

There are also people who get divorced because their relationship was weak before they got married. Domestic violence, gambling, personality differences, lack of communication, cheating, and financial problems are all reasons why couples get divorced.

The national divorce rate by province came out, the average rate of divorce is as high as 39.33%.2 Recently, a number of places released 2021 marriage data, the overall trend for the last five years the number of marriage registrations declined year by year, the age of marriage is delayed, and the divorce rate in 2021 to reduce the obvious. In Jiangsu Province, for example, the Civil Affairs Bureau of Jiangsu Province released the "2021 Marriage Registration Big Data of Jiangsu Province", which shows that in 2021, 466,947 pairs of marriages were registered in Jiangsu Province***, a decrease of 5.16% from the total number of marriages registered in 2020. In terms of annual trend, the number of marriage registrations in Jiangsu Province has shown a downward trend year by year in the past five years. (Feb. 20, China News)

Many places across the country have released big data on marriages in 2021, showing a year-on-year decline in the number of marriages registered in the past five years and a delay in the age of marriage, which is indeed worrying. China has entered an aging society, under the comprehensive three-child policy, but the marriage rate is generally declining year by year, which may affect the actual effect of encouraging childbirth, affecting the future structure of the population. In the author's view, the "decline in the marriage rate" is a social problem that deserves attention, and should be viewed rationally, and government departments at all levels should actively take measures to address the situation and reverse this unfavorable situation for population growth.

The primary factor in the decline of the marriage rate is the age structure of the population. As China's population structure changes and aging progresses, the proportion of people of marriageable age is decreasing accordingly, which will inevitably lead to a decline in the marriage rate. From this point of view, the marriage rate in China will further decline in the future, and it will be difficult to reverse it in a short period of time. Secondly, the marriage rate is closely related to economic development. Due to economic development and urbanization, the willingness to marry has a "double squeeze" effect, more young people in order to fight for a career and choose to marry late, late childbearing. The above objective existence of social reasons, to a certain extent, pulled down the marriage rate.

However, there are also some practical reasons for the decline in the marriage rate. First, there is a change in the concept of marriage between men and women of marriageable age, and more and more young people are receiving higher education. In order to pursue the quality of marriage, they prefer not to have too many people in their search for a second half, which naturally leads to a delay in the age of marriage. Secondly, the economic cost and burden of marriage is greater, not only to have a house and car, but also the bride price, wedding banquet, etc., less than hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than a million dollars. In the face of such a huge economic pressure, many young people willing to get married to reduce, become "fear of marriage". Third, at present, the pressure of young people's lives is not low, once married into a family, the trivialities of life such as firewood, rice, oil and salt will involve a lot of time and energy. Some young people want to have more free time, often only to fall in love and not get married. In addition, young people's lifestyles and attitudes are changing, such as the pursuit of diversified life, marriage and childbirth in the eyes of some young people is no longer a necessity.

The decline in the marriage rate has a direct impact on the future demographic structure, and has a negative effect on the policy of encouraging childbirth, which should be of great importance to government departments and society at large, and practical measures must be taken to address the many pressures on young people, so that the marriage rate and the fertility rate can return to a reasonable level. For example, to extend the duration of paid marriage leave; with a marriage certificate can enjoy a one-time discount on the purchase of housing; to advocate a new style of thrifty and civilized weddings, encourage participation in the public welfare of the collective wedding, to curb the huge bride price, the wedding of large-scale practices; the government to introduce incentives for childbearing policies, and in the children's child care, medical care, education and other aspects of the increase in investment, so that young people get married, "affordable! "The government has introduced incentives for childbirth and increased investment in childcare, medical care, and education, so that young people who get married can afford to give birth to and raise their children, and so on. When young people feel no pressure to get married and have children, they will love to get married and love to have children.

The national divorce rate by province, the average rate of divorce is as high as 39.33%3 In our country about marriage has a lot of beautiful vocabulary, for example, in the sky willing to be a winged bird, in the ground willing to be a branch of the Lianliang branch; hold your hand with your son and grow old with him, and so on. Marriage is two people who choose to stay together for the rest of their lives because they love each other, but with the development of our society, there are many people who choose to get divorced, and our divorce rate is considered relatively high in the world.

According to reports in recent years, the divorce rate has been high in China's developed first-tier and second-tier cities, and there are even those who flirt with the idea that no above-average divorce rate is considered a good city.

While the economic level of the city, not based on the divorce rate to judge, but this can be seen, too high divorce rate has caused a lot of people 's concern.

So how high is this year's divorce rate that it has ushered in so much banter? We can analyze it in depth from the data below.

First of all, in 2020, according to relevant reports, just in this year China has 4,339,000 couples dissolved their relationship, although with compared to than in 2019, there is a decrease of 361,600 pairs. But the reason why there is a drop in the divorce rate is simply because the epidemic is so severe. Many people are still more focused on health issues in divorce and their own safety.

Many couples with problematic family relationships chose to put aside their conflicts with each other for a while and fight the epidemic together in 2020, and the experience repaired a lot of family relationships, and many couples chose not to divorce as a result.

But this year, the effects of active prevention and control have been seen, and the divorce rate has crept up again. 2021's latest divorce figures show that the total number of divorces accounted for 23 percent of the total number of marriages. Among them, Beijing, as the center of China's city, the divorce rate is also very top, reached 39% up and down.

According to the published data, the divorce rate in first-tier cities is still showing an upward trend, while surprisingly, some third- and fourth-tier cities, surprisingly, are also showing the momentum of the divorce rate, and even more than a lot of first-tier and second-tier cities.

The most obvious of these is Jilin. With the shift of our country's economic center of gravity to the south, the momentum of development in places such as northeastern Jilin has been far from what it once was. But in this survey, Jilin's divorce rate held steady in second place, crushing other cities.

Many experts have given their professional opinions on why this is the case, and one of the most convincing reasons is that a large number of young adults in the northeast have gone out to work, leading to some couples living apart and having relationship problems.

After all, the time spent away from home is often very long, at least a full year. The couple did not see each other for such a long time, and there is no way to help each other in life, such a state of affairs, many people can not accept, naturally, it will make each other relationship problems.

In the case of a generally high divorce rate across the country, one city has shown great stability. Hainan, which ranks 19th nationally in terms of GDP per capita, has a divorce rate of only 16.67 percent.

For this situation, many people are very puzzled, why the national divorce rate are high, Hainan can still maintain such outstanding performance, is it really Hainan people live so happy?

According to expert analysis, the opposite may be true. In some parts of Hainan, the gap between rich and poor is very large, many people with meager incomes because of the traditional concept of influence, will not easily produce the idea of divorce, which is why the divorce rate is so low.

The divorce rate is too high for this social problem, the state has begun to pay attention to, is trying to find ways to actively control, but after all, the relationship is a matter of two people, even the state does not have the right to intervene, so just in the process of divorce, more than a "divorce cooling-off period".

Such a measure in reducing the divorce rate, has played a large degree of buffer effect, many because of impulse and choose to divorce people, are in the cooling period to re-examine their feelings.

In fact, many people choose to divorce just because of some trivial matters of life, or even a certain sentence is not right, and intensify the conflict, only in the impulse to say the words of divorce.

And when the couple impulsively divorced, often produce the idea of guilt and regret, but all because they do not want to first bow their heads, and regret to miss the reason.

So the state comprehensively considered the introduction of a policy of cooling-off period, on the choice to divorce couples forced to separate for a month, each a good calm thinking about it. Such a measure has been welcomed by many after its introduction. After all, marriage is not a child's play and should indeed be carefully considered.

At the same time, the divorce rate in China in recent years has dropped significantly compared with the previous one, although it has not yet reached the most ideal state, but it has proved that the cooling-off period is effective.

It is important to realize that divorce is not only a matter of personal family in some cases, but also has a great impact on the social economy. A foreign organization has conducted a survey on this, through the analysis found that the divorce rate is relatively low in the city, people tend to be happier, the crime rate is also lower. Moreover, for children who have gone through their parents' divorce, most of them will face the problem of their parents reorganizing their families. At this point, it's certainly not fair to the children.

Legal Basis:

The People's Republic of China*** and National Code

Article 1,046 Marriage shall be entered into by a man and a woman of their own free will, and it is forbidden for any one party to coerce the other, or for any organization or individual to interfere with it.

Article 107: The age of marriage shall not be earlier than twenty-two years for men and twenty years for women.

Article 1048 prohibits the marriage of blood relatives in the direct line of descent or blood relatives in the collateral line of descent within three generations.

Article 109 A man and a woman who wish to enter into marriage shall apply in person to the marriage registration office for marriage registration. If they meet the provisions of this Law, they shall be registered and issued a marriage certificate. Completion of the marriage registration shall establish the marriage relationship. If the marriage has not been registered, it shall be registered retroactively.

Article 1,050 After the registration of marriage, according to the agreement between the man and the woman, the woman may become a member of the man's family and the man may become a member of the woman's family.

Article 101 The marriage shall be null and void under any of the following circumstances:

(1) bigamy;

(2) kinship which prohibits the marriage;

(3) being under the legal age of marriage.