14.6 %

Statistics from various civil affairs administrations across China reveal that in the first quarter of the year 3.176 million couples tied the knot, and some 465,000 others split, putting the divorce rate at 14.6 percent. This means about 5,166 families break up every day. The divorce rate has been creeping up for seven years in a row. In 2007, 3.2 million pairs filed for divorce and, by 2010 that figure had soared to 4.5 million. The trend is more marked in bigger cities. In the third quarter of 2009, for instance, doomed marriages represented 20.6 percent of all unions in Beijing and 23.9 percent in Shanghai.