China’s One-Child Policy Causes Divorce Boom
Photo courtesy of EHP
When China enforced a “one child only” policy in the early 1980’s to address its over-population problem, little did they know that they would opening their doors to a new problem: Divorce. A recent study by the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences has revealed that couples, who grew up as ‘only children’ are more likely to divorce than others, and the reason for divorce is primarily parental interference.
Zhang Sining, a researcher at the academy said a survey of 162 couples under 30 showed a divorce ratio of 24.5 percent when both were only children, 8.4 percent when one was an only-child, and 11.7 percent for those from families with more than one child.
According to Zhang, the overprotective manner in which the single child was brought up made them intolerant and uncompromising. “Parents and grandparents doted on and spoiled the single child - dubbed “little emperors” and “empresses”. Their intolerance and parental interference now threaten the stability of their marriages,” the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Zhang as saying.
“About 87 percent of only children felt pressured to find a spouse to satisfy their parents, 58 percent acknowledged their parents were a factor in the break-up, and 55 percent said their parents interfered in their marriages,” he said.
“We are on the edge of divorce because our parents are already waging war over the ‘dinner issue’. His mother drops in every day to check whether I have cooked her son’s favorite dishes, while my father often asks us to dinner to pull me out of housekeeping, and he quizzes my husband on whether he is taking good care of me,” said Hu Jia, 25, in Xining City in northwest China’s Gansu Province.
The survey further showed that 92 percent of only children wanted a home away from their parents, in order to cope up with their problems on their own.
“Over-protective parents undermine the relationships of young couples by “protecting” their offspring against their spouses rather than teach them how to cooperate,” said Zhang Dasheng, director of a psychological counseling centre in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province.
“On the other hand, over-indulged only children are accustomed to seeking parental care - boys from their mothers and girls from their fathers. The dissatisfaction with the care from their spouses often leads to disappointment or doubts,” Zhang Sining added.
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Fascinating article on the economics of chinese birth planning , which asks “how necessary was the one child policy in fostering economic development?”. In-depth analysis with useful facts and statistics