The accompanying dataset for this release provides further breakdowns of the number of opposite-sex divorces by sex, age, previous marital status and percentage of marriages ending in divorce by year of marriage. Levels of cohabitation increased over this period while the married population declined and our latest marriage statistics for 2017 show that nearly 9 in 10 couples (88%) were cohabiting before marriage. Also, the Divorce Reform Act 1969 came into effect in England and Wales on 1 January 1971, making it easier for couples to divorce upon separation – this caused a large increase in divorce rates in 1972.Ĭhanges in attitudes to cohabitation as an alternative to marriage or prior to marriage, particularly at younger ages, are likely to have been a factor affecting the general decrease in divorce rates since 2003. The Divorce Reform Act 1969, which came into effect on 1 January 1971, made it easier for couples to divorce upon separation.ĭownload this chart Figure 2: The divorce rate among opposite-sex couples increased in 2019 following decreases seen in the last two years ImageĬhanges in behaviour and attitudes to divorce are considered to be important factors behind the increase in divorce rates between the 1960s and the early 1990s.The increase in divorce rate in 2019 will have been affected by the processing of the backlog of divorce applications in 2018. However, divorce rates remain well below the most recent peaks recorded in 20 (13.4 men per 1,000 married men and 13.2 women per 1,000 married women). In 2019, the number of divorces of opposite-sex couples per 1,000 married men and women aged 16 years and over (divorce rates) increased for both men and women to 8.9 from 7.5 in 2018 (Figure 2). When considering changes in the number of divorces, it is important to take account of the size of the married population, which will affect the number of divorces. The fall in the number of divorces since 2003 is broadly consistent with an overall decline in the number of marriages between 20 since then, the number of marriages has fluctuated while the number of divorces continued to decline overall. The Divorce Reform act 1969, which came into effect on 1 January 1971, made it easier for couples to divorce upon separation and is associated with the increase in the number of divorces during the 1970s.ĭownload this chart Figure 1: The number of divorces of opposite-sex couples increased in 2019 following decreases seen in 20 ImageĪlthough the number of divorces increased in 2019, there has been an overall downward trend in divorce numbers since the most recent peak in 2003 and opposite-sex divorces remain 30% lower than 2003 figures (Figure 1).Marriage statistics are only available up to the 2017 data year.Follow Vital Statistics Outputs Branch on Twitter Back to table of contents Kanak Ghosh, Vital Statistics Outputs Branch, Office for National Statistics. Unreasonable behaviour, which includes adultery, was the most common ground for divorce among same-sex couples this year as almost two-thirds of couples divorced for this reason.” “While we see that 56% of same-sex marriages were among females, nearly three-quarters of same-sex divorces in 2019 were to female couples. Since then, we have seen the number of divorces of same-sex couples increase each year from very small numbers in 2015 when the first divorces took place, to more than 800 in 2019, reflecting the increasing size of the same-sex married population in England and Wales. “Same-sex couples have been able to marry in England and Wales from March 2014. In 2019, the average (median) duration of marriage at the time of divorce was 12.3 years for opposite-sex couples, a small decrease from 12.5 years in the previous year. Unreasonable behaviour was the most common reason for opposite-sex couples divorcing in 2019 with 49% of wives and 35% of husbands petitioning on these grounds it was also the most common reason for same-sex couples divorcing, accounting for 63% of divorces among women and 70% among men. There were 822 divorces among same-sex couples in 2019, nearly twice the number in 2018 (428 divorces) of these, nearly three-quarters (72%) were between female couples. The divorce rate among opposite-sex couples in 2019 increased to 8.9 divorces per 1,000 married men and women aged 16 years and over from 7.5 in 2018 this increase will have been impacted by the additional processing of casework in 2018. There were 107,599 divorces of opposite-sex couples in 2019, increasing by 18.4% from 90,871 in 2018 the scale of this increase partly reflects divorce centres processing a backlog of casework in 2018, which is likely to have translated into a higher number of completed divorces in 2019.
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