Divorce in China: institutional constraints and gendered outcomes

Abstract

research: divorce litigation. Drawing upon extensive empirical data, Prof. He presents a lively and detailed picture of how divorce cases are handled by Chinese courts amidst the latest legal and political reforms on protecting women ’ s rights, as he carefully analyzes how institutional constraints have had an impact on the practice of judges, leading to gendered outcomes in divorce cases. The analytical framework for understanding divorce litigation carefully articulated by Prof. He o ff ers an important lens for making sense of the relationships between law, gender and power in China. 2