Does Mobile Phone Penetration Affect Divorce Rate? Evidence from China

Abstract

Marital happiness is an important symbol of social harmony and can help promote sustainable economic and social development. In recent years, the rapid rise of the divorce rate in China, a country where the divorce rate had previously been low, has attracted wide attention. However, few articles have focused on the popularization of information and communication technology's impact on China’s rising divorce rate in recent years. As a first attempt, the provincial panel data during the period 2001–2016 is applied to study quantitatively the relationship between mobile phone penetration and the divorce rate. In order to get more reliable estimation results, this paper uses two indicators to measure the divorce rate, and quantile regression is applied for further analysis. Additionally, one-year to five-year lag times of the mobile phone penetration are used as the core explanatory variables in order to analyse the lagging effect of mobile phone penetration on divorce rate. The result shows that the correlation between the mobile phone penetration and the divorce rate was statistically positive significant in China during the period 2001–2016. Furthermore, the paper also finds that mobile phone penetration had the greatest impact on divorce rate in central China, followed by eastern China, but it was not obvious in western China during this period. From a technological perspective, this paper provides some possible explanations for the rising divorce rate in China in recent years, and further enriches the relevant research on the impact of the development of information and communication technology on societal changes.

Does Internet Use Affect Medical Decisions among Older Adults in China? Evidence from CHARLS

“…Control variable. Referring to Liu et al and Zhang et al, this paper compiled a rich set of control variables, including age, gender, marital status, education level, urban or rural areas, physical health, IADL (Instrumental Activity of Daily Living), per capita household income, family members and children quantity [ 41 , 63 ]. Considering that the type of residence may influence the interviewees accessing medical information through the Internet and choosing the type of medical treatment, this paper controls the type of residence.…”

“…People browse health information through the Internet to make further medical decisions. On the one hand, the Internet provides diagnosis and treatment plans for almost all types of common diseases, including basic definition and symptoms, drug-use methods, and contraindications [ 41 , 42 , 43 ]. Studies have shown that an increasing number of people tend to use the Internet to obtain health care information [ 44 , 45 , 46 ], including older adults [ 47 , 48 ].…”

The role of income and gender unemployment in divorce rate among the OECD countries

“…Bracher and Santow (, ) observed that economic factors are important variables to be considered before an individual gets involved in a relationship or marriage. This is because, for partners to sustain their relationship, there has to be a minimal level of financial satisfaction (Zhang, Cheng, Wei, & Gong, ). Over a period of time, the socioeconomic dynamics of marriage and divorce have been associated with other factors that include demographics, and business cycles, among other factors (González‐Val & Marcén, ; Kravdal, ).…”

Worldwide Increasing Divorce Rates: A Sociological Analysis

“…Moreover, another reason for appearance of more divorces in China is because of amendment added to Marriage Law in 2001, which shortened the divorce application procedure (Romantic Materialism, 2011). As investigated, high cell phone penetration in China has also destroyed the family harmony and fidelity paving the route to more divorces (Zhang, 2018). As marriage maintenance has decreased due to rising divorces in recent years, many public discussions governmental organs often criticize it.…”