ABSTRACT
In 1986, 8.82 million Chinese couples registered marriages, and about 214,000 were granted divorces after failed mediations. 1 In 2011, 13.02 million couples registered marriages, and 2.87 million couples became legally divorced. 2 During the past 25 years, the marriage rate in China has increased only slightly, to 1.48 times the rate reported in 1986, compared to a divorce rate that has skyrocketed to 13.43 times the rate reported that same year. This rapid increase in the divorce rate reflects a major societal transformation in China. In this chapter, we describe the historical equivalent of divorce and discuss several factors that have led to the current astronomical divorce rate. We then focus on the post-divorce lives of women, as their lives tend to be altered substantially more than those of divorced men. In the Road Ahead section, we predict how the lives of divorced women will continue to evolve.
