SRRD_2018_08.pdf (643.53 kB)
Children and Divorce in China. Does a boy protect marriage?
preprint
posted on 2018-03-07, 16:33 authored by Li MaLi Ma, Ester RizziEster Rizzi, Jani TurunenJani TurunenAbstract: This study explores the association
between children and divorce in China. In particular, we estimate how the
number and sex composition of children are associated with the risk of divorce
across time and space. We apply event-history analysis to longitudinal data
from the China Family Panel Studies. Our observation covers the 1970-2012
period. We find that childless couples have a substantially higher divorce risk
than parents do, especially during the two most recent decades. The more
children a couple have, the less likely they are to divorce. The effect of the
child’s gender on divorce changes over time for rural and urban parents in
different manners. For rural one-child parents, the child’s gender had no
effect on parental divorce up to the 1990s; its effect became notable in the
2000s, with parents who had a girl having a higher divorce risk than those with
a boy. For urban one-child parents, however, the child’s gender completely lost
its importance for divorce over the turn of the new century. Findings of this
study provide reflections on the empowerment of girls and the decline of
son-preference culture in urban Chinese society.