The divorce rate is rising across Asia. During the same period that divorce rates have remained more or less stable in the Western world, divorce has increased by a third in Singapore and doubled in Thailand and mainland China. The divorce rate has tripled in Taiwan. Here’s the article about all this in the Khaleej Times.
The article assumes that the change is due to a surge in the relative power of women, and it’s forcing men into a new set of roles and expectations:
While Japanese women will see divorce as a first step to a new and improved life, Japanese men are struggling with the wholly new duties of doing the laundry or cooking, things that have traditionally been done for them all their life — first by their mothers and then by their wives. In this sense, more and more Japanese men are becoming Americanised!