Single-parent job plan fuels divorce frenzy
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-28 22:02

BEIJING - Chinese education officials have scrapped a job cut plan that allowed single-parent teachers with children to stay in work after it prompted a rash of divorces, a Chinese newspaper said on Wednesday.

The plan to cut teachers in primary and middle schools in Dandong, in northeastern Liaoning province, had resulted in 41 teachers at a single school filing for divorce in a week, the Shanghai Daily reported.

"In comparison, their town divorced a total of 34 couples in the whole of 2005," the paper said.

The mass divorce alerted officials, who suspended the plan and persuaded 39 of the 41 teachers to re-marry their former spouses, the paper said.

The education board's plan was not the first time pragmatic Chinese employees have swapped marital vows for work.

In August last year, dozens of laid-off workers at a state-run oilfield in China's northern Hebei province filed for divorce after the company issued a policy allowing divorced, retrenched workers to regain their jobs.