IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dem/demres/v7y2002i11.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Association of Divorce with Socio-Demographic Covariates in China, 1955-1985

Author

Listed:
  • Yi Zeng

    (Duke University)

  • T. Paul Schultz

    (Yale University)

  • Deming D. Wang

    (Alma College)

  • Danan Gu

    (United Nations)

Abstract

Based on a unique data set on the event history of marriage and divorce collected in the In-Depth Fertility Surveys conducted in Shanghai, Shaanxi, and Hebei in 1985 and a multivariate hazards model, this paper investigates the association between divorce risk and socio-demographic factors in China. Controlling for several other socio-demographic factors, we demonstrate that the risk of divorce for women who married before age 18 is twice as high as that of those married after age 20; the risk of divorce of arranged marriages is about 2.6 times as high as that of not-arranged ones. The number of children is highly and negatively correlated with risk of divorce; the traditional son preference does not seem having substantial effects on divorce among women who have one or two children; but the risk of divorce of women who have three or more daughters without a son was 2.2 times as high as that of those women who have three or more children with at least one son. The divorce level in urban areas is higher than that in rural areas. The greater proportion of arranged and early marriages plus some other special factors in a less developed region (Shaanxi) contributes to its higher general divorce rate before 1985, in comparison with the advanced region (Shanghai). The divorce level in Shanghai after 1985 has become higher than that in Shaanxi. It seems that education level is positively related to divorce and labor force participation is negatively related to divorce, but the estimates are not statistically significant. Some explanations of these findings are also discussed in this paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Yi Zeng & T. Paul Schultz & Deming D. Wang & Danan Gu, 2002. "Association of Divorce with Socio-Demographic Covariates in China, 1955-1985," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 7(11), pages 407-432.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:7:y:2002:i:11
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2002.7.11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol7/11/7-11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/DemRes.2002.7.11?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gunnar Andersson, 1997. "The Impact of Children on Divorce Risks of Swedish Women," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 109-145, June.
    2. Sander, William, 1985. "Women, Work, and Divorce," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 519-523, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kim Qinzi Xu, 2022. "Children and marital dissolution in China," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 233-255, June.
    2. Li Ma & Ester Rizzi & Jani Turunen, 2019. "Childlessness, sex composition of children, and divorce risks in China," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(26), pages 753-780.
    3. Puthiery Va & Wan-Shui Yang & Sarah Nechuta & Wong-Ho Chow & Hui Cai & Gong Yang & Shan Gao & Yu-Tang Gao & Wei Zheng & Xiao-Ou Shu & Yong-Bing Xiang, 2011. "Marital Status and Mortality among Middle Age and Elderly Men and Women in Urban Shanghai," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(11), pages 1-10, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bellido, Héctor & Molina, José Alberto & Solaz, Anne & Stancanelli, Elena, 2016. "Do children of the first marriage deter divorce?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 15-31.
    2. Lorenzo Todesco, 2011. "A Matter of Number, Age or Marriage? Children and Marital Dissolution in Italy," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 30(2), pages 313-332, April.
    3. Laura Cavalli & Alessandro Bucciol & Paolo Pertile & Veronica Polin & Nicola Sartor & Alessandro Sommacal, 2012. "Modelling life-course decisions for the analysis of interpersonal and intrapersonal redistribution," Working Papers 25/2012, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    4. Stark, Oded, 2019. "Behavior in reverse: reasons for return migration," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 104-126, May.
    5. Erika Sandow, 2014. "Til Work Do Us Part: The Social Fallacy of Long-distance Commuting," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(3), pages 526-543, February.
    6. Rainer Walke, 2002. "Twins or two single children," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 7(9), pages 379-390.
    7. Magdalena Muszyńska-Spielauer, 2008. "Women’s employment and union dissolution in a changing socio-economic context in Russia," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 18(6), pages 181-204.
    8. Berggren, Niclas, 1997. "Rhetoric or reality? An economic analysis of the effects of religion in Sweden," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 571-596.
    9. Nezih Guner & Ezgi Kaya & Virginia Sánchez-Marcos, 2014. "Gender gaps in Spain: policies and outcomes over the last three decades," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 61-103, March.
    10. Liat Raz-Yurovich, 2012. "Economic Determinants of Divorce Among Dual-Earner Couples: Jews in Israel [Les déterminants économiques du divorce parmi les couples à double revenu : le cas des juifs en Israël]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 28(2), pages 177-203, May.
    11. Gunnar Andersson & Ognjen Obućina & Kirk Scott, 2015. "Marriage and divorce of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in Sweden," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(2), pages 31-64.
    12. Sander, William, 2011. "Location and happiness in the United States," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(3), pages 277-279, September.
    13. Julia A. Heath & David H. Ciscel, 1996. "Escaping the Fate of Sisyphus: Bargaining, Divorce, and Employment in the Patriarchal Family," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 1-19, March.
    14. Samuel A. Rea, Jr., 1995. "Breaking Up is Hard to Do: The Economics of Spousal Support," Working Papers reas-95-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    15. Bruce Phillips & William Griffiths, 2002. "Female Earnings And Divorce Rates:Some Australian Evidence," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 850, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Abbasoğlu Özgören, Ayşe & Ergöçmen, Banu & Tansel, Aysit, 2017. "Birth and Employment Transitions of Women in Turkey: Conflicting or Compatible Roles?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 161, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Rainer Walke, 2001. "Twins or two single children: the influence of the multiplicity of the first birth on the divorce risk of Swedish women," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2001-029, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    18. Øystein Kravdal, 2010. "Demographers’ interest in fertility trends and determinants in developed countries: Is it warranted?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 22(22), pages 663-690.
    19. Ari Klængur Jónsson, 2021. "A Nation of Bastards? Registered Cohabitation, Childbearing, and First-Marriage Formation in Iceland, 1994–2013," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(1), pages 65-95, March.
    20. Waters, Melissa S. & Ressler, Rand W., 1999. "An economic model of cohabitation and divorce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 195-206, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    China; divorce; divorce risk; sociodemographic factors of divorce; arranged marriage; early marriage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:7:y:2002:i:11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editorial Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.