Trends And Patterns In Statuses Of Divorced And Widowed In Recent China

Divorced and widowed problem is an important aspect of marital problems. Since the reform and opening up, especially since the1990s, China has undergone great changes. Due to the changes of social, economic, cultural backgrounds, legal and other factors, the way of marriage has also occurred great changes, one of its characteristics is that more and more people has tolerance for divorce and remarried after widowed. Divorce means the breakdown of a family, our country’s divorce rate is showing an increasing trend.There are much problems along with divorce which are easy to cause conflict of the both sides,such as property distribution, child education, elderly maintenance,and so on.Widowed problem especially elderly widowed problem is worthy of attention.The number of the widowed elderly people increaces rapidly because of the extension of average life expectancy, they are disadvantaged group and need more help. Therefore,the study of divorced and widowed plays an important role in understanding the trend of our marital status and policy making.This paper collected the data of divorced and widowed from the China Population Statistics Yearbook1996-2010,then analyze the divorced and widowed status of the country, city, town.and county separately. Specificaily, first of all, the observed and fitted age-specific rates for1995,2000and2008in the country and for1995,2005and2008in cities, towns and counties, males and females separately, are compared, and the trends over years are discussed. Secondly, the fitted age-specific rates in cities, towns and counties are compared, and the trends from1995to2008are discussed. Thirdly, the observed age-specific rates for2009and the predicted rates for2009based on the1995-2008data for the country,1995and2004-2008for cities, towns and counties, are compared, which shows the accuracy and predictability of the model.Finally, the paper summarizes the model results based on a number of significant trends divorced and widowed, and put forward appropriate policy recommendations.