China’s civil code: Divorcing spouses, for the primary time, can request compensation (Representational)
Beijing:
A Chinese man has been ordered to pay his ex-wife virtually $8,000 for years of unpaid home tasks, in a landmark divorce case that has sparked livid debate in China.
Under the nation’s new civil code, which got here into impact this 12 months, divorcing spouses have the suitable for the primary time to request compensation in the event that they bore extra tasks at dwelling.
Ex-wife Wang advised the Beijing courtroom that in 5 years of marriage she “looked after the child and managed household chores, while (her husband) Chen did not care about or participate in any other household affairs besides going to work”.
She filed a declare for additional compensation for home tasks and childcare duties, in line with a February four courtroom assertion.
The courtroom dominated that Wang had certainly taken on extra family tasks and may obtain 50,000 yuan ($7,700) plus sole little one custody and an extra 2,000 yuan in alimony per 30 days.
But after native media reported this week that Wang had appealed — having initially requested 160,000 yuan compensation — the ruling sparked widespread on-line debate over the worth of girls’s unpaid home labour.
The trending hashtag “stay-at-home wife receives 50,000 yuan housework compensation” gained over 570 million views on the Twitter-like platform Weibo by Wednesday.
“Women should never be stay-at-home wives… when you divorce, you are left with nothing whatsoever. 50,000 yuan in housework compensation is bullshit,” learn one remark.
“A full-time nanny could cost more than this for half a year, are women’s youth and feelings this cheap?” learn one other.
The quantity mirrored the size of time the couple have been married plus “the effort Wang put into housework, Chen’s income and the local cost of living,” in line with one of many judges, quoted Monday in native media.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has estimated that Chinese ladies spend almost 4 hours doing unpaid labour each day — 2.5 instances that of males and better than the common.
Marriage breakups have surged over the past 20 years in China as divorce legal guidelines have been liberalised and girls turned extra financially impartial — to the priority of Beijing, which is making an attempt to spice up start charges in an ageing inhabitants.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by LiveNews360 employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
