For the 15th consecutive year, divorces are on the rise in China, with over 3.1 million couples filing for divorce in the first nine months of 2019, according to recently released figures by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Nearly 80 percent marriages dissolved due to claims of "discord or an incohesive relationship." The average divorce came between two to seven years after marriage. 

In Beijing alone in 2014, local courts handled 38,619 first-instance family cases, of which divorce cases accounted for around half.

Years of rapid development has transformed Chinese society. Better socio-economic status and more open social concepts can lead to higher tolerance for divorces. Increased income also means that people have more options and are less dependent on the marriage to support the family. Now "couples have fewer extra worries and it is easier for them to leave each other once they find mutually incompatible," said director of the Institute of Political Science of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Fang Ning.

During a seminar at Tsinghua University in November, Zhou Qiang, chief justice and president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) pointed out that 74 percent of divorces were initiated by women.

At the same time, the marriage rate in China reached a new low in 2018. The fundamental reason for this change is the dramatic drop in China's working-age population, said Zhai Zhenwu, professor of sociology and population studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing. When China's working-age population declined for the first time in 2012, it coincided with the decline in birth and marriage rates.