How many divorces in 2011

A total of 23 1 couples were married in About 5 couples got married abroad; more than in A total of 10 couples divorced and 11 separated. Compared to , there were fewer marriages, almost as many divorces and fewer separations. Steadily more people are preferring to get married abroad.

At the end of the 80s, about 1 , or five per cent of the 20 marriages held each year took place abroad. Since then, the percentage of couples getting married abroad has increased; to 22 per cent in The number of divorces has remained unchanged for the last five years.

The average age for first time married males was After an increase until , the mean age has changed very little for both sexes. Since the lowest level in , the mean age for first time married has increased by 8. The marriage rate for first time married was highest for both males and females in the age group years, as in previous years. About one-quarter The age difference was most pronounced for those aged 65 and over.

The prevalence of individuals in opposite-sex couples who were seniors was close to three times greater than that for same-sex spouses or partners Marriages in Canada are analysed using administrative data from the Canadian Vital Statistics Database. In addition to the number of marriages, the marriage indicators examined in this section include the crude rate, monthly distribution and average age at marriage for the nation as a whole, as well as some provincial and territorial differences.

In , there were , marriages in Canada, the second year of decline, and the lowest number of marriages since Figure 7. The crude marriage rate, that is, the number of marriages per 1, population, was 4. This was the lowest crude marriage rate in the history of the vital statistics data on marriages.

The number of marriages has fluctuated over the past century and has been influenced by historical events. During the Great Depression of the s, there were fewer marriages and a lower crude rate as people were probably less willing or able to marry during a period of high unemployment and challenging economic circumstances.

In , Canada entered the Second World War and some couples may have married to reduce the likelihood of possible conscription—which would have affected never-married men more than married men. While low during the war years, the number of marriages rose again in at the end of the war. The number of marriages was then relatively stable throughout much of the s and early s before increasing during the subsequent decade, peaking at , marriages in This corresponded to members of the large baby-boom cohort reaching ages where marriage rates were high at that time.

In , there was a small increase in the number of marriages perhaps as some people wanted to marry in the millennium. Despite a growing total population over time, the number of people getting married has been on an overall downward trajectory for close to forty years.

Since the s, the age of people getting married for the first time has been rising. In , women married for the first time at In contrast, women and men married for the first time at much younger ages throughout the s and s, at roughly age 23 for women and age 25 for men. Despite an increasing average age at marriage during the past four decades, there has been a fairly consistent age differential between women and men.

One of the consequences of relatively high divorce rates is that more people in the population are potentially able to marry again. People who divorce tend to be younger than those whose marriages end through death, and these people may be more able or willing to enter a subsequent union.

The average age of divorced women at remarriage in was For women and men who married in and who had previously been widowed, the average age at marriage was Seasonal trends in marriages are evident from the marriage data Figure 9.

Most marriages took place in the summer months of August The lowest number of marriages took place from January to April—with January being the least popular month for weddings as 2. Across Canada, in , the number of marriages increased for Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Nunavut over the previous year. British Columbia had a stable number of marriages while there were decreases for the other provinces, Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

In , the crude marriage rate was highest in Prince Edward Island 6. The crude marriage rate in was lowest in the territories: Yukon 4. In the territories and Quebec, the proportion of people who live common-law is much higher than elsewhere in the country. This section on divorces analyses the number of divorces, the crude divorce rate and age at divorce for both Canada overall and for the provinces and territories, using administrative data from the Canadian Vital Statistics Database.

Divorces can be granted only following a legal marriage. There were 70, divorces in Canada in , or a crude divorce rate of Historical patterns in the number and rates of divorces are primarily associated with legislative changes. For much of the 20th Century, there were few divorces given existing social norms and restrictive grounds for divorce.

In , the Divorce Act was amended to reduce the separation requirement to one year or more. The following year, in , there was a record high of 96, divorces and a crude rate of For about the last twenty years, the number of divorces and the crude divorce rates have been fairly stable.

Similar to the fluctuation in the number of divorces and the crude divorce rate at the national level from year to year, this also occurs at the provincial and territorial level.

Of the total, almost half of these divorces occurred in the first 10 years of marriage , with divorces most likely to occur between the fourth and eighth wedding anniversary. The divorce figure was one of the first increases in several years and as we previously reported , was up 4. In its latest release, the ONS have also included a selection of facts about the divorce statistics which you can find below:.

In , The first chart below is where people get the idea of half of all marriages ending in divorce. But what it really shows is that for each year, an equivalent of half the number of people getting married get divorced - rather than half of all the married people in the country. Divorce rates are better to look at - this is a rate of divorces per 1, married people in the country.

The number of divorces in Scotland fell by 2. The number of divorces in Northern Ireland also decreased. In , there were 2, divorces, 9. Despite the decrease in divorces, the number of civil partnership dissolutions increased in However this is part of an upward trend given that this type of partnership is relatively new and therefore the numbers of people in civil partnerships is increasing. Comparisons between civil partnership dissolutions and divorce statistics can be found in the article: Civil Partnerships five years on Further statistics on civil partnership dissolutions can be found on the ONS website.

Mid population estimates by marital status are not currently scheduled for publication. These estimates would normally be used to calculate divorce rates. Consequently, divorce rates are based on estimated marital status population estimates which use the mid population estimates based on the Census and the marital status distribution from the based marital status population projections for Analyses have shown that these estimates provide:.

ONS will consider the future need for population estimates by marital status in their present form once results from the Census by marital status, age and sex are available. These results will be used to benchmark current methods and evaluate alternative sources of data on partnership status.

Population estimates for mid to mid are being revised to take account of the results of the Census to ensure a consistent time series over the decade. Revised population estimates for:. Subnational areas in England and Wales, mid to mid are due to be published in March-April Revisions to population estimates by marital status for mid to mid are not currently planned.

The marital status estimates used to calculate divorce rates for are therefore not consistent with the latest mid-year population estimates. Consequently, any comparisons between rates for and should be treated with caution due to the different census bases used.

To enable comparisons over time, divorce rates in have been compared to those in The Ministry of Justice MoJ is one of the key users of divorce statistics and has responsibility for policy and legislation on divorces.

The demography unit at DWP uses the detailed divorce statistics to feed into statistical models for pensions and benefits. Organisations such as Eurostat and those in the voluntary sector use ONS divorce statistics for comparison purposes and also to support campaigns. Lawyers, solicitors and those involved in family law, as well as academics and researchers in demography and social sciences, are often interested in divorce figures.

Queries on divorces by area are frequent, although ONS does not produce divorces by area of residence. This is because divorce data provided to ONS by the courts does not contain information on the area of residence of the parties. Information on the location of the court is available, but this is not a good indicator of where the parties lived either before or after separation, as the two parties may choose the court they wish to use and courts are not evenly spread around England and Wales.

ONS divorces metadata Annual divorce figures for the UK and constituent countries can be found in the Population and Health Reference tables. National Records of Scotland provide divorce statistics for Scotland. Annual and quarterly divorce statistics are also available from the Ministry of Justice. Further statistics on marriages , civil partnership and civil partnership dissolutions are available on the ONS website, as are data on families and households which presents recent estimates of the number of families by type, people in families by type, and children in families by type.

Population estimates by marital status provide the estimated resident population by single year of age, sex and marital status single, married, divorced, and widowed for England and Wales. Wilson, B and Smallwood, S The proportion of marriages ending in divorce Vaitilingham, R. ONS divorce statistics are collated from D forms used to record decree absolutes. These paper forms are supplied to ONS for processing by the courts.

The number of divorces as indicated by ONS and MoJ statistics, while similar, do not match exactly, and ONS and MoJ have published a joint statement on differences between these figures. For example, in the total ONS divorce figure was , compared with the MoJ figure of , a difference of 2, 1.

The two sets of figures do not count precisely the same cases. There are some other differences arising from the way the data are collected and processed. These include:. ONS and MoJ have worked closely together over the past couple of years to reconcile the two sets of statistics as far as possible. Both departments have agreed that attempting to achieve yet closer reconciliation is not an immediate priority at the current time.

This situation will be regularly reviewed in the future. The male divorce rate is calculated by dividing the number of males divorcing in a particular year by the estimated number of married males aged 16 and over in that same year taken from mid-year population estimates by marital status.

Likewise, the female divorce rate is calculated by dividing the number of females divorcing in a particular year by the estimated number of married females aged 16 and over in that same year.