What Is behind the Brisk Growth of Divorce Rates in Taiwan? Findings from Period and Cohort Data

Yen-Hsin Alice Cheng, Academia Sinica

This study plans to make use vital statistics data, 3 rounds of census data, and a large nationwide survey across 9 years to explore the expanding negative educational gradient in divorce risk in Taiwan. The findings show that the drastic increase in period divorce rates mask the fact that social inequality is expanding across educational lines—the least educated are becoming more vulnerable to union instability. The decade before and after the millennium emerge as two critical periods, as educational gap in divorce risks for those with and without college education go from nearly non-existent to a two-fold difference. The cohort analyses indicate that men and women born in the 1950s experienced the highest divorce rates than other groups. The good news is that the younger cohorts seem to have lower divorce rates than these “forerunners,” although the negative educational gradient is expanding for the younger generations.