One in five women in China said last year that they regret getting married. Concerns about domestic violence, household responsibilities and unequal public policies fuel their doubts about marriage.
Last year, almost 20 per cent of married women said they regret getting married, compared with 12 per cent in 2017 and 9 per cent in 2012, the annual China Beautiful Life Survey found.
Only about 7 per cent of men said they regret getting married.
The survey is jointly conducted by China Central Television with the National Bureau of Statistics, China Post Corporation, and the National School of Development at Peking University. It is issued to 100,000 households across China via post.
China has witnessed a steadily rising number of divorces and falling number of marriages in the past decade.
The divorce-to-marriage ratio, or divorces as a percentage of marriages, was slightly above 20 per cent in 2009. In 2019 it hit 50 per cent, according to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The ratio dropped in 2020, the year of the coronavirus pandemic, but still remained high at above 45 per cent.
And most often it was the wife who initiated the break-up. According to data from the Supreme People’s Court, more than 73 per cent of divorce cases heard by all courts around China in 2017 were brought by women.
The government also appears aware of rising divorces, and on January 1, 2021 it implemented a law that requires couples to go through a 30-day “cooling off period” before they can complete the split. At the end of 2020, that impending law resulted in a rush of divorces so couples could avoid the cooling-off period.
In a survey by China Central Television (CCTV), the joint survey mentioned earlier, last year, nearly 47 per cent of Chinese men said they took part in housework before getting married, compared with 46 per cent of women. But the balance switched after marriage, with slightly above 46 per cent of men and 48 per cent of women saying they did chores.
Source: South China Morning Post
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