Divorce Chinese Style

• Author: Li Ma,Ester Rizzi,Jani Turunen
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12484

L M Université Catholique de Louvain

J T Stockholm University∗and Karlstad University∗∗

E R Université Catholique de Louvain∗∗∗

Divorce Chinese Style

This study investigated divorce during China’s

social and economic transformation period from

1970 to 2012. Specically, the study examined

the trend development of divorce and demon-

strated how marriage formation type and indi-

vidual socioeconomic characteristics were asso-

ciated with the likelihood of divorce acrosstime.

Event-history analysis was applied to longitudi-

nal data from the China Family Panel Studies

(2010–2012 waves). The results showed a three-

fold increase in divorce from the pre-1990s to

the 1990s. Surprisingly, the trend shifted to a

plateau toward the 2000s. When cohabitation

was in its rapidly diffusing stage in the 1990s,

individuals who cohabited prior to marriage had

a substantially higher likelihood of divorce. As

cohabitation became increasingly common in

the 2000s, its effect on divorce weakened. The

role of socioeconomic characteristics in divorce

also varied across time. This study enriches the

Center for Demographic Research, Université Catholique

de Louvain, Place Montesquieu 1bte L2.08.03, 1348

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (li.ma@uclouvain.be).

∗Department of Sociology, Stockholm University,

Universitetsvägen 10B, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.

∗∗Center for Research on Child and Adolescent Mental

Health, Karlstad University,Universitetsgatan 2, 65188

Karlstad, Sweden.

∗∗∗Center for Demographic Research, Université

Catholique de Louvain, Place Montesquieu 1 bte L2.08.03,

1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

Key Words: China, divorce trends, education, hukou origin,

marriage formation, modernization.

knowledge of family dynamics in contemporary

Chinese society.

China’s economic reform and opening-up poli-

cies since the late 1970s have been accompanied

by notable demographic changes, including an

increase in divorce. Existing research on divorce

in China has largely relied on aggregated data.

Researchers have reported a substantial increase

in general or crude divorce rates beginning in the

late 1970s (Wang & Zhou, 2010; Zeng & Wu,

2000). The increase was steady during the 1990s

but accelerated after the turn of the century, with

the divorce rate rising from 0.98 per thousand

in 2001 to 2.79 per thousand in 2015 (National

Bureau of Statistics of China, 2017).

However, aggregated data cannot truly dis-

close the development of divorce because these

data ignore the actual number of the popula-

tion at risk for divorce, the age structure of the

population, and other socioeconomic and demo-

graphic factors. Based on individual-level data

and a multivariate hazards model, Zeng, Schultz,

Wang, and Gu (2002) estimated the sociodemo-

graphic determinants of divorce for the period

from 1955 to 1985. Due to the lack of follow-up

data, we know little about divorce patterns and

trends after 1985, a signicant period in Chinese

history characterized by remarkable social and

economic changes.

In this study, based on individual-level data

from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS),

we update knowledge regarding divorcein China

from three perspectives. First, we investigate

how the divorce trend has developed in the

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (October 2018): 1287–1297 1287

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12484