Man ordered by divorce court to pay wife $7,700 for doing housework during their marriage

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A man in China must pay his wife for the years of housework she did while they were married for five years, according to a decision from a Chinese divorce court.

The ruling is based on a new marriage law in China that took effect on Jan. 1, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday, Feb. 24.

“There’s a clause that says the party who takes on more work raising children, taking care of the elderly and assisting their spouses’ work is entitled to ask for compensation during divorce,” explained Zhong Wen, a divorce lawyer.

The woman, identified with the surname Wang, and her husband with the surname Chen, met in 2010 and married in 2015. They began living separately in 2018 and have one son who was living with his mother.

Chen filed for divorce in Beijing last year. Though Wang was hesitant about the divorce, she eventually asked for a division of property and to be paid for childcare and housework. She claimed that her husband had not been involved in those domestic responsibilities and that he had an affair.

The court ruled that Wang could have custody of their son and that Chen should pay her an alimony of 2,000 yuan ($300 or P15,000), as well as 50,000 yuan ($7,700 or P58,000) for housework done over the five years of their marriage.

Some Chinese citizens argued on Weibo that the compensation for housework was still too low. Divorce lawyer Wen also said the sum was small.

Women perform at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men, according to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. This means women have less time to take part in paid labor and have longer work hours of both paid and unpaid labor. It also states that unpaid care and domestic work are valued to be 10% and 39% of a country’s gross domestic product. Niña V. Guno /ra

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