What’s new: About 51% fewer couples registered for divorce in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, according to data from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The country of 1.41 billion people recorded 296,000 divorce registrations in the first three months, down 51.6% from the first quarter of 2020 when the figure stood at 612,000, according to data (link in Chinese) released on May 13. The number of registered divorces in the first quarter of 2019 was more than 1 million, the data showed.
Multiple experts told Caixin the significant drop in registered divorces might be linked to the introduction of a mandatory 30-day “cooling-off” period earlier this year. However, they also said the quarterly data was not enough to explain the drop and a longer period of observation will be needed to understand the effect of the policy.
The background: The “cooling-off” period is part of a new Civil Code that came into effect on Jan. 1. Under the Civil Code, couples who file for divorce need to wait 30 days for official approval, during which time either party can formally withdraw their application.
It added that after the “cooling-off” period is over, couples who do not appear together before the authorities to obtain a divorce certificate “will be seen as having withdrawn their application.”
Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com)
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