A Chinese couple takes pictures of themselves as they sit at a shopping district in Beijing, China. (Photo : Getty Images)
A newly released marriage report in China explains why divorce rate in the Asian giant has been rising steadily the past 12 years. It's because marriage discontent hits Chinese couples earlier than the global average of seven years into the union.
Among Chinese married pairs, it hits earlier at three to five years. The study "Chinese marriage status report in 2015," released by Peking University and Baihe Marriage Research Institute, found 11.1 percent of Chinese couple wish not to be married to their current spouses in the next life. Another 8.9 percent prefer to have remained single, reports Sina.
The reasons behind discontent in their marriage range from an affair by either husband or wife, or both, and on the part of women, the pressure of working and having to take care also of their children, parents and do household chores.
The five-year itch happens when one partner becomes more demanding on the other, and a spouse finds it less costly to have an affair or seek a divorce than fix their domestic problem, explains Zhou Xiaopeng, president of Baihe. The survey was done within two months, online and offline, and had almost 80,000 couple-respondents from 31 China provinces, including residents of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
That means with the average marriage age of 27, as early as 28 until 30, Chinese couples are divorcing. Also down is the average age that Chinese lose their virginity which went down to 17 in 1995 from 22 in the 1980s, reports The South China Morning Post.
It also implies that Chinese youth are indulging in premarital sex for at least 10 years before they get married.
