In 2023, 6.5 marriages were registered per 1,000 inhabitants in Russia, compared to 4.7 divorces per 1,000 population. The marriage rate in the country saw an increase compared to the previous year. In 2011, 9.2 marriages were registered per 1,000 Russians, which was the highest number recorded over the period under consideration. What do marriage and divorce rates mean? The crude marriage rate refers to the number of marriages per one thousand population, according to the United Nations Population Division. In total, around 946,000 marriages were registered in Russia in 2023, while the country’s population was estimated at 146.3 million in that year. Another indicator relevant to Russian demographics is the crude divorce rate, which is the number of divorces recorded in a year per 1,000 population, as defined by the United Nations Population Division. In total, nearly 684,000 divorces were registered in Russia in 2023. What do Russians think of marriage? In every age category, most Russians believed that being married and living in a family was most preferable in the society. However, the share of family and marriage supporters was the lowest among 18-to-24-year-olds, measuring at 60 percent. Both for men and women, the ideal age to get married was considered in a person’s twenties.

In 2023, the number of marriages registered in Russia decreased by around 107,800 compared to the previous year, having reached approximately 946,000. The divorce count also saw a slight increase, measuring at 683,800. The number of marriages in the country peaked in 2011 at over 1.3 million registrations.

The Republic of Ingushetia was the region in Russia with the highest growth in the number of divorces between January and May 2021, at approximately 251 percent compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. The Chechen Republic followed, where divorces increased by over 174 percent.

One third of Russians named poverty and having no or not enough money the most common reason for people to get divorced, according to a survey from July 2021. The second most popular ground was the lack of mutual understanding between spouses, as per 14 percent of respondents.

As of October 1, 2021, 535 out of thousand women aged 16 years or above in Russia were married. The same held true for 633 out of thousand men. Furthermore, 137 women and 95 men were divorced out of every thousand individuals from the corresponding gender group.

In 2020, Latvia, Denmark, and Lithuania had the highest divorce rates among countries in the European Union, at 2.7 divorces per 1,000 population. By contrast, Malta had the lowest divorce rate at 0.5 divorces per 1,000 population.