Marriage rate down, divorce rate up as more Chinese couples say ‘I don’t’ or ‘I won’t any more’
Trends are a concern for ruling Communist Party, which regards families as the building blocks of society
More Chinese are getting divorced and fewer are getting married, and the government is growing concerned.
According to figures released recently by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the “crude divorce rate” – which measures the number of separations for every 1,000 people in the population – doubled in the decade through 2016 from 1.46 to three.
The number of couples who actually divorced last year rose 8.3 per cent from 2015 to 4.2 million, the ministry said. And according to its most recent figures, the trend looks set to continue, with 1.9 million couples getting divorced in the first six months of this year, a rise of 10.3 per cent from the same period of 2016.
Although the crude marriage rate was higher last year than it was in 2006, the recent trend has also been downwards. From a peak of 9.92 per thousand people in 2013, the figure for last year was just 8.3, the ministry said, adding that the number of couples who actually married in 2016 fell 6.7 per cent from the previous year to 11.4 million.