What Is China's 'Cooling Off' Law? Divorce Rates Drops 70% As Critics Warn Of Domestic Violence Increase

A controversial new law in China has influenced the divorce rate, which plummeted more than 70% in the first quarter of 2021, according to reports.

The divorce rate drop comes after a law passed in May 2020 that required couples to wait 30 days before they formalize a divorce, otherwise known as a “cooling-off” period. The law immediately prompted a national debate over government interference in private relationships amid China's divorce rate's steady climb in recent years.

China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs logged just 296,000 divorces in the first quarter of 2021, down from 1.06 million in 2020 and 1.05 million in 2019.

Similar policies had already been in place in several provinces. Their nationwide application extends the minimum wait to finalize a divorce to 60 days. France and the U.K. have similar policies.

The law prompted concern about an increase in the risk of domestic violence. Women's rights activists in China cast the rising divorce rate as a product of increasing personal and professional independence for women, criticizing the waiting period as an undue restriction on personal freedoms.

NBC News reported in March about a 2019 case that involved video evidence that showed a woman violently assaulted by her husband. The court did not rule in her favor when she filed for divorce. It was only after the woman posted the video online that social media pressure pushed the court to grant her a divorce.

There is also the case of Kan Xiaofang, a woman who suffered from domestic abuse and was killed by her husband in January as she attempted to escape her marriage. Some speculated Kan would have lived had her divorce gone through.

Chinese officials have pointed out that women can still sue through the courts to avoid the waiting period, but the process is far more intensive than the standard application. An inquiry by China’s Supreme People’s Court found that 68% of divorce suits were dismissed on their first hearing. That figure is noteworthy considering 74% of first hearings in divorce cases in 2016 and 2017 were filed by women.

"Very few divorce cases can be approved in the first trial," Chen Jiaji, a Shanghai divorce lawyer, told local paper Sixth Tone. "Divorce cases usually last for at least six months, while more complicated cases could last one or two years."

One factor driving the government to enforce the new rules is concern over a declining birthrate and the aging population it could create.

"Marriage and reproduction are closely related. The decline in the marriage rate will affect the birth rate, which in turn affects economic and social developments," Yang Zongtao, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told reporters in 2020.