Divorce Rates by Country 2022

A legal, cultural, or religious union impacts everything from the couple’s name and location to their future offspring. Marital unions are cultural universals, and there are no known instances of societies that operate without them.

In practically every situation, a couple’s marriage is seen as a turning point in their life, whether they fell in love, wanted to be with someone forever, wanted to have a family, or for other personal or professional reasons.

Divorce and the reasons behind it.

There are instances when marriages fall apart. An estimated 4-5 million Americans marry each year, with 42-53 percent of those marriages ending in divorce, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Infidelity, financial difficulties, loss of intimacy, drug addiction, domestic violence, lack of commitment, moral or religious differences, and just growing apart are all potential reasons for divorce.

Divorce is not a phenomenon exclusive to the United States. It seems to be just as common as marriage itself when it comes to divorces.

Calculating a person’s divorce rate

Census data may be used to compute divorce rates, one of the easiest approaches. The divorce rate is calculated by dividing the number of divorces in a given year by the total population.

This measure is usually given as a population percentage, such as 1 in every 1000. For example, if there were 500 divorces in a year in a population of 100,000 people, the divorce rate would be five divorces per 1,000 persons.

Divorce rates per 1,000 persons are highest in the following 13 countries:*

*The most current data for each nation is shown below. China in 2018; Cuba in 2019; the others in 2020 2020-21

1. Maldives – 5.52
2. Kazakhstan – 4.6
3. Russia – 3.9
4. Belarus (tie) – 3.7
5. Belgium (tie) – 3.7
6. Moldova – 3.3
7. China – 3.2
8. Cuba – 2.9
9. Ukraine – 2.88
10. Denmark (tie) – 2.7
11. Latvia (tie) – 2.7
12. Lithuania (tie) – 2.7
13. United States (tie) – 2.7

The Maldives will have the highest divorce rate in the world in 2020, according to UN and other figures, with a rate of 5.52 divorces per 1,000 people. According to Guinness World Records, the nation had a rate of 10.97 in 2002, which is highly reported.

The Maldives has a high rate of divorce. What’s the reason? One theory is that people in the island country don’t engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage because marriage and divorce are so simple that if a relationship doesn’t work out, they immediately get married and rapidly get divorced.

As a result, women in the Maldives are more empowered and financially self-sufficient, allowing them to leave marriages that aren’t functioning.

With 4.6 divorces per 1000 persons in 2020, Kazakhstan was ranked second in the world in divorce rates. With 2.7 divorces per 1000 persons, the United States ranks ninth on the list. With a divorce rate of 14%, Nevada has the highest divorce rate in the United States.

The impact on divorce rates of a COVID-19 pandemic in 2020

For example, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 had a significant influence on marriage and divorce rates. In general, the rate of marriage decreased dramatically in 2020 because of the lockdowns and limitations on public meetings caused by the epidemic.

More than that, in practically every nation, the divorce rate has fallen dramatically, from 2 to 4 percentage points in most situations.

Slovenia’s divorce rate, for example, decreased from 1.2 in 2019 to.8 in 2020, indicating a downward trend. There was a similar dip in Hungary, Seychelles, and the Dominican Republic rankings.

Oddly, the divorce rate in Denmark, one of the world’s best ten places to live, increased from 1.8 to 2.7 during the 2020 pandemic.

Divorce Rates Per 1000 People in the 12 Countries with the Lowest Divorce Rates

The most up-to-date data available for each nation is generally between 2017 and 2020.

1. Sri Lanka – .15
2. Guatemala (tie) – .20
3. Vietnam (tie) – .20
4. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – .40
5. Peru – .50
6. South Africa – .60
7. Chile (tie) – .70
8. Colombia (tie) – .70
9. Ireland (tie) – .70
10. Malta (tie) – .70
11. Panama (tie) – .70
12. Qatar (tie) – .70
13. Saint Lucia (tie) – .70
14. United Arab Emirates (tie) – .70
15. Venezuela (tie) – .70

On the other side, there are nations with very low divorce rates. According to the data currently available, Sri Lanka has the world’s lowest divorce rate, with 0.15 divorces per 1,000 people.

The divorce rate in Vietnam and Guatemala, at 0.2 divorces per 1,000 people, is the second-lowest. Fourth through sixth place are Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Peru, and South Africa, and then a nine-way tie at.70/1000 forms a logjam that absorbs positions seventh through the fifteenth.

Note that low divorce rates do not always equal happy, healthy marriages for inhabitants of the nation.

There are some countries where divorces are not as simple as they are in the United States, and wives may not be able to leave a bad marriage because they are afraid for their own and their children’s safety or because they lack the financial means (or societal opportunity) to support their families on their own.

In reality, according to the 2019 Gender Inequality Index (GII) of the United Nations, the following are the six nations with the lowest divorce rates:

For the top six nations with the lowest divorce rates, we used the GNI (a lower GNI score is preferable):

• Peru – .395 (87th place)
• Guatemala – .479 (119th place)
• Saint Vincent and Grenadines – not rated
• Vietnam – .296 (65th place)
• South Africa – .406 (93rd place)
• Sri Lanka – .401 (90th place)

When it comes to gender equality, all but three of the 13 nations with high divorce rates are ranked inside the top 50. With this information, it is vital not to judge married life in a certain nation based on its divorce rate.

Relationship between divorce rates and marriage rates

In reality, a nation’s divorce rate cannot tell us how common divorce is in that country. This is because the divorce rate is based on the number of divorces as a proportion of the total population rather than the number of marriages as a percentage of the whole population.

What’s the big deal? To put it another way, a divorce rate of 2.7 new divorces per 1000 persons in the United States in 2019 is outstanding if all of those people were married but alarmingly high for just 50 out of 1000.

Because of this, divorce rates are typically compared to the general marriage rate in a nation. They may even be combined to provide an estimated proportion of marriages and divorces.

One new divorce for every 2.26 new marriages equates to a slightly over 44% divorce rate in 2019, based on a divorce rate of 2.7 per 1000 persons in the United States in 2019 and the number of weddings that took place that year.

Figures like “2.7 divorces per 1000 persons” may not be as enlightening or accessible as these. Naturally, even this estimate isn’t 100% accurate—the best comparison is between the divorce rate in the year the marriage was first formed and the current divorce rate.

But it is a helpful (and easy to calculate) rough approximation when more precise data is lacking.

Also Checkout: Countries with Red, White, and Blue Flags 2022