Sunday, January 28, 2007

New count halves China divorces

China has discovered the truth behind its worryingly high divorce rate - a statistical inconsistency.

For years, the country's official divorce rate has been calculated on the basis of the number of people divorced, the China Daily newspaper reports.

Now Chinese statisticians have decided to follow the international practice of counting the number of actual divorces, and seen its divorce rate cut in half.

The 2005 rate fell from 2.76 divorces per 1,000 people to 1.38.

The inconsistency came to light thanks to Xu Anqi, a researcher for the Marriage and Family Institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

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