The reservoir of divorces that various experts predicted in recent years as a side effect of the corona pandemic has so far failed to materialize. An analysis by Statistics Netherlands published on Wednesday shows that the number of divorces has decreased further in recent years.
In 2021, fewer than eight out of 1,000 marriages ended in divorce. This share has not been this low since 1980. In 2014, 10.4 out of 1,000 marriages failed, but since then the share of divorces has been declining further every year.
Especially during the first year of the corona crisis, a lot changed for loving couples, which would lead to more divorces, divorce lawyers, among others, expected. It is possible that the reservoir will still fill up, says Statistics Netherlands, for example because it is currently difficult for people to find replacement housing, but this is not yet apparent from the figures.
aging
According to Statistics Netherlands, the decline in divorce is partly due to the aging population. As a result, the group of married couples increasingly consists of couples who have been married for decades. The longer a couple is together, the smaller the chance of divorce.
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The decrease in divorce is also due to the fact that younger generations do not marry or marry at a later age. In 2000, 88,000 couples were married, in 2020 56,000 couples were married. The median bride age has risen from 31 in 2000 to nearly 36 in 2020. The older married people are, the more likely they are to stay together. According to the CBS, couples nowadays more often marry after a ‘cohabitation relationship’.
Partnership
Contemporary couples also often opt for a registered partnership, which legally entails almost the same as marriage, but is easier to dissolve. Of the couples who registered a marriage at the registry office in 2021, almost a third opted for a registered partnership.
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The fact that marriages have ended in divorce less often in recent years does not mean that partner relationships have become more stable in general, the CBS also concludes. However, to be able to say something about that stability, the agency looked specifically at couples with children, because it has data on that.
The number of couples who have just had a child and are breaking up has increased in recent years. Of the couples of parents who had a child in 2013 and at that time lived at the same address, more than 11 percent had separated within six years, according to the CBS analysis. Of the parents who had a child in 1998, this was still almost 9 percent.
Parents who were married when their child was born divorced the least. Of married couples who had a child in 2013, less than 8 percent separated six years later. More than 10 percent of parents with a registered partnership ended their love relationship. The proportion of parents who lived together without being married was the largest: more than 16 percent had separated after six years.