Divorce hard choice in tough times

Chinese couples going through a friendly divorce return their marriage certificates to the civil affairs department and get divorce certificates. CFP

Yang Jie is 30 and recently divorced. She considers herself lucky.

"We had no property, no car, and no kid," said Yang, an employee in a Shanghai medical apparatus and instruments company. "The legal proceedings took one day, and only cost us 10 yuan ($1.47)."

For upper-income couples, divorce is not so easy these days. Many unhappy couples prefer to live together rather than liquidate their recession-battered assets.

"Rich people get tight-fisted when it comes to divorce," said Tang Jianan, a family lawyer with more than 10 years' experience at the Huiye law firm in Shanghai.

"The recession has made them even more tight-fisted, and even more reluctant to break up."

Some 1.553 million Chinese couples divorced last year, while 10.5 million got married. Both marriages and divorces increased by 10.6 percent over 2007; previously, the number of divorces had been growing more rapidly.

Ma Hongrui, an attorney with the Globe law firm in Beijing, says his divorce business has declined by 20 to 30 percent.

"The recession has caused a sharp decline in their assets, and that makes them reluctant to break up," Ma said.

Earlier this month, Ma met with a couple about a divorce. They had two houses in Beijing, totaling more than 300 sq m, and investments of at least 3 million yuan ($440,000) in the stock market.

"We met a few times, but then they didn't come any more," Ma said. "They may have gone to another lawyer, but I think they realized what a bath they were going to take on their investments."

Recession or not, another disincentive to divorce is legal costs.

Consider, for example, a couple with assets of 10 million yuan ($1.47 million). In order to divorce, they can expect to pay a lawyer between 150,000 and 300,000 yuan ($22,000-$44,000), in addition to court costs of 50,000 yuan ($7,000).

Additional costs, such as collecting evidence and preventing the other party from hiding assets, could sometimes be even higher than all the above costs combined, lawyers say.

"There is a cost-benefit analysis to be done," said Ma. Because of the cost, he expects more wealthy couples to seek a friendly divorce, which requires fewer legal proceedings.

The decline of big-money divorce cases has cut into lawyers' income, and some are now willing to negotiate their fees.

"There are 18,000 attorneys in Beijing," Ma said. "The competition is fierce."

Zhang Yi, a researcher with the Institute of Population and Labor Statistics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes the economic crisis is the main reason for the decline in divorces.

"We had a similar situation in 1997 and 1998, when the Asian financial crisis swept through China," Zhang said.

Regardless of the economy, Zhang expects the divorce rate to rise again soon. Otherwise, unhappy couples will lead to "serious social problems", he said.

At last month's meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), delegate Zhang Xiaomei proposed a change in the tax code, levying the income tax on families, not individuals.

"The reform is aimed at maintaining family bonds, as well as social stability," she said. "It will help families pull through tough times."

(China Daily 04/06/2009 page6)