Divorces in China on the rise again despite mandatory cooling-off period

CHONGQING – Throughout their eight-year marriage, Ms Judy Zhong and her husband could not see eye to eye on many issues, including whether they should have children.

So when the 36-year-old factory manager in eastern Anhui province petitioned for a divorce in March 2024, the 30-day cooling-off period mandated by the government did nothing to change her mind.

It simply meant another month during which she continued to avoid her husband, who had moved in with his parents. The one time they saw each other was at the Civil Affairs office, a day after the cooling-off period, to finalise the divorce procedure.

“The only thing I thought about during the 30 days was the freedom I would feel once we annulled our marriage,” Ms Zhong, 36, told The Straits Times.

The effectiveness of the cooling-off period required before an uncontested divorce has been called into question as divorces continue to rise following an initial plunge when the measure was put in place on Jan 1, 2021.

The government intervention was intended to curb impulsive decisions, especially with marriages under unprecedented strain during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In China, uncontested divorces are registered at Civil Affairs offices with both husband and wife present, while contested divorces are granted by the courts. 

Full-year official data on both contested and uncontested divorces showed that 3.6 million couples finalised their divorces in 2023, up from 2.88 million in 2022 and close to pre-2021 levels.

In 2021, when couples began having to wait 30 days, there were 2.84 million divorces, down from more than four million recorded each year between 2016 and 2020. State media had named the cooling-off period as the primary reason for the decrease in divorces.

Former vice-president of the Supreme People’s Court told local media in 2020 that the cooling-off period was meant to give couples time to think through their decision before ending their marriage in the heat of the moment.

The courts “don’t want to see a family separated due to short-term disputes”, he said.

Lawyers told local media in 2020 that there had been cases where couples had applied for divorce without thinking through how to divide their assets or settle child custody, and that the cooling-off period was meant to give them more time to sort out these issues.

There are no strict requirements such as mediation or counselling sessions that couples must follow during the 30-day period.

The cooling-off period restarts when either the husband or the wife goes to the Civil Affairs office, claiming to have changed their minds; and those who continue to be stuck in unhappy marriages can petition the courts for a divorce.

Recent divorcees told ST that they did not consider the cooling-off period a factor that could change their minds. Instead, they generally perceived the additional 30 days as a “troublesome” requirement.

A 43-year-old entrepreneur in south-western Sichuan province, who gave his name only as Mr Chen, said that he and his former wife had decided to split in June 2023 after differences over money. 

“I can see why the government put in place this additional step but for me and my former wife, it only lengthened the tension we had to bear by being in the same unwanted marriage together,” he said.

An education consultant in Beijing, who is in her 30s and gave her name only as Ms Jing, said she was worried that her former husband might change his mind during the cooling-off period.

“Thankfully, he didn’t,” she told ST, adding that the uncertainty gave her sleepless nights.

“That’s a big problem with the cooling-off period: Either side can change their mind, and the clock on the cooling-off period will restart. I heard of vengeful partners who kept changing their minds just to torture the other party,” added Ms Jing, whose divorce was finalised in 2022. 

The alternative is to apply for a divorce through the courts, but “that is very troublesome”, she said.  

Both Mr Chen and Ms Jing declined to give their full names, citing the need to protect their privacy. 

Divorces in China are celebrated on social media as symbols of freedom, with netizens throwing divorce parties and proudly showing off the maroon booklets bearing their divorce registrations.

A factory about 100km outside of capital city Beijing has offered to help divorcees destroy evidence of their marriage. Wedding photos, along with other usual keepsakes, can be tossed into crushers for between US$8 (S$11) and US$28.

Society’s changing perception towards divorce marks a departure from traditional values, which emphasised staying together as a married couple no matter what and stigmatised divorce. 

Assistant Professor Mu Zheng at the National University of Singapore told ST that it is too early to judge the effectiveness of China’s cooling-off policy, which is also contending with the lingering stresses brought on by the pandemic.

She said that the growing divorce numbers since 2022 “may be largely due to the escalation of family conflicts and tension in marriage during the pandemic”. 

Furthermore, with China’s economy suffering various post-pandemic shocks, people might be dealing with severe strains on their health, finances and relationships, “profoundly limiting and compromising the effectiveness of the cooling-off policy”, added Prof Mu, an expert on families in both Singapore and China.

But others have noted that in divorces where domestic violence is a factor, the mandatory cooling-off period may aggravate the risks for the abused party.

On Nov 25, China’s highest court released five examples of how the authorities were cracking down on domestic violence to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

In one example, a man killed his wife, who had suffered years of abuse before applying for divorce in July 2021. He was then sentenced to death.

In another case, a woman, who had been scolded and beaten by her husband for years, stabbed him to death while he was sleeping one night in March 2023. The court, after taking into account the long-term abuse, the fact that the woman had reported the case herself and obtained the forgiveness of her husband’s family members, sentenced her to a five-year jail term.

Both cases made it to popular microblogging platform Weibo’s hottest search lists, drawing hundreds of millions of views in a single day. 

Data by the All-China Women’s Federation, an official rights group, in 2020 showed that about 30 per cent of women in the 270 million families in China have experienced domestic violence.

Netizens who claimed to be former victims of domestic abuse took aim at the cooling-off period and said that the authorities had in the past treated spousal violence – depending on the severity – as family disputes during the 30 days and would not take further action beyond mediation. 

“I had to continue living with my abusive former husband and moved out only after the divorce was finalised following the 30-day period,” said a netizen from north-western Gansu province.