A total of 1,785,000 Chinese married couples divorced in 2005, 120,000 more than in the previous year, leading to a divorce rate of 2.73 per thousand.

A report recently issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs indicates that the country's divorce rate has been on the up since 2002.

Last year, 1,184,000 pairs of men and women had their divorce registered at civil affairs departments, up 13.2 percent compared with the figure of 2004, and 601,000 pairs got divorced at courts, down 2.9 percent.

In 2005, 8,267 divorce cases involved overseas Chinese or compatriots from Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions (SARs), up 41.8 percent.

In contrast to the hikes in the number of divorces, last year witnessed a remarkable decrease in the number of marriages, with only 8,231,000 couples getting married, 441,000 less than the previous year's figure.

Fourty-seven percent of the new couples last year were aged between 20-24 years, 34 percent were 25-29, 9.9 percent were 30-34, 4.9 were 35-39, and 3.9 percent were 40-plus.

Most of those who were married at the age of 40 or older live in big cities, with Shanghai first, followed by Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing.

(Xinhua News Agency May 19, 2006)