The graph illustrates the percentage of marriages that ended in divorce in the United States from the year 2000 ('00) to 2022 ('22). The x-axis represents the years, labeled with two-digit abbreviations from '00 to '22, while the y-axis displays the divorce rates as percentages. Throughout this period, divorce rates varied between a high of 41.7% in 2002 and a low of 32.62% in 2022. The data shows a notable decline in divorce rates over the two decades, with some fluctuations occurring in the early and mid-2000s. Overall, the trend indicates a steady decrease in the proportion of marriages ending in divorce in the United States from 2000 to 2022.

According to the 2020 UNIDOMO questionnaire, Portugal clearly led the list of European countries with the highest divorce rate per 100 marriages. With 91.5 divorces the Portuguese Republic led the list, followed by Spain and Luxembourg. All three countries boast a significantly higher share than the other European countries, each reporting a divorce rate over 80 divorces.

A different way to look at Portugal

While Portugal clearly has the most divorces per 100 marriages, looking at divorce rates per 1.000 inhabitants in other European countries alters the picture of the country as one unsettled by significant numbers of divorces. With nearly 1.7 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants Portugal has roughly the same divorce rate as Germany and the Netherlands. Interesting is furthermore that although marriages in Portugal tend to result in divorce lightly more often as in Luxembourg (80.3%), the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg experienced a 0.6 point higher divorce rate.

What about the rest of the World?

While compared with Latin American countries like Guatemala or Peru, ranked among the countries with the lowest divorce rates in the world, Luxembourg’s divorce rate seems excessive. However, when compared with divorce rates (per 1.000 inhabitants) of countries like the United States (2.7) or China (3.5) divorce rates from Luxembourg and Europe are not out of the ordinary.

Number of divorces and divorce rate per 1,000 marriages, by duration of marriage and place of occurrence, 1970 to most recent year.

In 2022, the divorce rate in the United States stood at 2.4 per 1,000 of the population. Divorce in the U.S. Divorce is the termination of a marital union. In the United States, as in most other countries, it is a legal process in which a judge or another legal authority dissolves the bonds of matrimony existing between two persons. The process of divorce also normally involves issues surrounding distribution of property, financial support of the former spouse, child custody and child support. A divorce also allows a person to marry again.In the United States divorce is, like marriage, a matter for state governments, not the federal government. Although divorce laws vary from state to state, for example on which terms a divorce can be arranged, a divorce must be certified by a court of law to become effective. A declining divorce rate Over the last couple of years both the marriage rate and the divorce rate have been declining in the United States. As of 2009, the average length of a first marriage in the U.S. was eight years. The average age men were at when they went through their first divorce was 32, for women this was 30. The average length of a second marriage was about 10 years.

Number of divorces and various divorce indicators (crude divorce rate, divorce rate for married persons, age-standardized divorce rate, total divorce rate, mean and median duration of marriage, median duration of divorce proceedings, percentage of joint divorce applications), by place of occurrence, 1970 to most recent year.

Ages of husband and wife at marriage, and analyses of the percentage of marriages ending in divorce by year of marriage and anniversary, and proportions of men and women who had ever divorced by year of birth and age.

The number of divorces in Finland remained fairly stable throughout the period from 2014 to 2024. As of 2024, approximately 11,869 marriages ended in divorce. That year, over 21,400 marriages were formed in Finland.

In 2023, around a quarter of all divorces in Germany were in marriages lasting between six and ten years.16.6 percent of marriages ended between zero and five years after they began.

In 2023, the divorce rate in Germany lay at about 35.74 percent. The highest divorce rate at almost 52 percent was recorded in 2005. Since then, divorce rates have ranged between 30 and 50 percent. The divorce rate compares the number of marriages with the number of divorces in the same period under review. Accordingly, the divorce rate does not provide any information about the ‘divorce risk’ of a particular marriage cohort, as the divorces do not relate to a marriage year.

Annual divorce numbers and rates, by duration of marriage, sex, to whom granted, and reason.

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.

Nearly half of divorces registered in Brazil in 2020 were of marriages with less than ten years. About 26 percent of marriages that came to an end in 2020 had lasted 20 years or more. That year, there were a total of 331,185 divorces in the country.

The divorce rate in Mexico has experienced a steep upwards trend since 2001. That year, there were only 8.6 divorces per 100 marriages. However, with a total of 166,766 divorces registered across the country, the rate went up to 32 in 2022.

In 2020, the number of divorces in France was of 57,437. France had a divorce rate of 55 per 100 marriages in 2020. A number which was not one of the highest in Europe but that emphasizes the fact that in recent years, divorce is a phenomenon with a significant impact on Western countries.

The characteristics of French divorces

Despite a record number of 152,020 separations in 2005, the number of divorces in France remained stable since the mid-2000s and has also been declining by a rate of 8 percent between 2004 and 2014. Since then, the number of divorces remained almost the same in the country, even though an decrease has been seen between 2016 and 2017. In 2019, the majority of divorces in France were pronounced by mutual consent. Most of divorces pronounced in France concerned marriages which lasted between 4 years and 7 years.

Unions in France

The number of marriages in France is decreasing since 2004 and reached 220,000 in 2021, compared to 236,826 ten years before. Same-sex marriage was legalized in France since 2013, but civil partnerships are the type of unions that increased in recent years. More than 205,000 civil partnerships were contracted in 2010 in France. Implemented in 1999, civil unions in France are established between two individuals regardless of gender.

In Germany, the most divorces by far were among couples who had been together for over 26 years. In 2023, there were 19,622 divorces among couples who had been together over 26 years. On the other end of the spectrum, there were 786 divorces between couples who had been married for two years or less.

Portugal was the European country with the highest divorce rate in 2020, counting almost 92 divorces per 100 marriages. However, in 2023, the divorce-marriage ratio decreased to 47 percent. In 2020, the ratio peaked because of the drop in marriages during the coronavirus (COVID-19) related lockdown. Pandemic years registered the lowest numbers of marriages and divorces since 2010 Until 2019, the annual divorce rate in Portugal had been relatively stable at around two divorces per 1,000 residents. Nevertheless, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the lowest divorce rate so far was recorded at 1.7, which may be explained by the restrictions imposed by lockdowns and the delays in administrative and bureaucratic services. Still, and due to the same reasons, the number of marriages also suffered a steep decline in 2020 to around 18,900, more than doubling in 2022 and surpassing 2011 figures. First marriages and motherhood occur later in life in Portugal The mean age on first marriage of both men and women in Portugal has been increasing at an almost constant pace for years. 2021 marked an inversion of this tendency, with the mean age of men when marrying for the first time decreasing to 34.3 years of age and the mean age of women decreasing to 32.9 years. However, the rising trend in age was quickly reestablished, as 2022 recorded the highest mean age on first marriage for both sexes. Under the same inclination is the average age of women when giving birth to their first child, which was at 30.9 years in 2021, increasing two years of age in relation to 2010.

The total divorce rate in Czechia fluctuated in the observed period. While in 1993, it amounted to 36.2 percent, this figure increased to 50 percent in 2010 before dropping to 37.1 percent in 2023. Does a lower divorce rate mean a happy marriage? The total divorce rate indicates the proportion of marriages that would have ended in divorce if the divorce rate intensity of a given year had been maintained. This rate has declined since the 2010s, with a single increase in 2017. This coincides with the number of divorces in Czechia, which has decreased since 2010, with only a rise in 2013 and 2017. The decline in divorce numbers has been very prominent recently, as they have reached record-low figures since 2020. However, this does not necessarily mean that people stay happily married. On the contrary, Czechia’s marital status figures indicate that the married population's share has gradually declined since 2010. This development has co-occurred with the growing share of divorced and single people. Rather than get married, people live together as unmarried partners and wait, or they do not intend to get married at all as the traditionalist social pressure to marry at all costs is much lower than decades ago. Marry later, divorce later Czechs tend to get married much later than 30 years ago. In 1993, the mean age of men at first marriage was 25.4 years, while for women, this figure amounted to 23.2 years. However, the age of first marriage increased over the years, with both genders getting married around seven years later in their lives as of 2022. This also corresponds with the mean duration of marriage at divorce. In 1993, people were married for around 10 years before divorcing, but this figure also increased by more than three years, meaning people stay married for longer before getting a divorce.

The decision of ending a marriage is not always easy, but almost 82 percent of Italians believed that sometimes it was necessary. When asked about the reason for getting separated or divorced, the majority of Italians indicated betrayal or infidelity causing their decision. The second most common motive, pointed by about 17.5 percent of the interviewees, was the fact that the love between the two spouses was over.

Divorces in Italy on the rise

The number of Italian couples deciding to end their marriage has increased over the last years. In 2017, the country registered roughly 15.1 divorces per every 10,000 inhabitants, about six divorces more than in 2010. The region where most spouses decided to split up was Liguria, with 21 divorces per 10,000 individuals.

The Portuguese and Luxembourgish divorce the most

With 48.7 divorces for every 100 marriages, Italy ranked right behind the European top ten countries with the highest divorce rates in 2016. The ranking was led by Portugal and Luxembourg, which in the year considered registered about 69 and 66 divorces for every 100 marriages, respectively.

In 2022 in the Netherlands, seven out of 1,000 marriages ended because of a divorce. This is compared to the marriage dissolution rate due to the death of a partner in the same year, which stood at 19.5 per 1,000 marriages.

This statistic shows the likelihood of a divorce occurring by number of marriages in the United States, as of 2013. According to these figures, 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce.