The recent announcement by the celebrity couple Liu Xiang and his wife Ge Tian that they are divorcing just nine months after they married, has sparked intense discussion about the high divorce rate among those born after 1980.

The latest statistics released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs seem to justify concern. According to its data, 3.64 million couples registered for divorce in 2014, an increase of 3.9 percent from the previous year, and among them more than 40 percent had been married for no more than three years.

The statistics also indicate that a year after the promulgation of the marriage registration ordinance by the State Council in 2003, which considerably simplified divorce procedures, the number of divorces increased to 2.56 among every 1,000 couples.