China's Divorce Rate

I found this article on divorce in China. I know a few people had asked this question in class. Divorce, once nearly unheard of in China, has become more common than ever as women gain financial independence and shrug off the diminishing stigma of leaving their husbands. Legal barriers to divorce have fallen away -- couples needed permission from their employers until just four years ago -- and the Internet has become a resource for discontented spouses seeking guidance.
More broadly, experts say, the increase in divorce points to an embrace of individualism in this country, which in many ways remains only nominally communist.
Although it remains lower than in many developed countries, the divorce rate in China has skyrocketed in recent decades. It more than doubled from 1985 to 1995, as the country opened to Western ideas, and by 2005, the rate had more than tripled, to 1.37 couples out of every 1,000 people, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. In cities such as fast-paced Shanghai, the divorce rate is now seven or eight times the rate in 1980, Xu said.
The U.S. divorce rate, by comparison, was 3.7 couples per 1,000 people in 2004. By some estimates, half of all new marriages in the United States will end in divorce.
In the past, many Chinese couples stayed together because of pressure from family members. But that pressure has lessened as the notion of family has changed. Traditional courtyard houses that once contained extended families have been replaced by modern apartment blocks and smaller families.
The most recent revisions came in 2003. Courts no longer automatically reject first-time divorce applications or require long waiting periods before reapplying; people can now get divorced in a matter of minutes.