According to INSEE data, the number of divorces per year in France has been estimated at an average of 120,000 per year over the past twenty years. In total, 46% of marriages end in divorce. But what are these figures worth compared to our neighbors and other countries in the world? Here are the 10 countries where people divorce the most.
To evaluate the divorce rate in a country, two criteria are used by statistical organizations: the divorce rate, that is to say the number of divorces pronounced in relation to the number of marriages recorded during the year, and the divorce rate, which corresponds to the number of divorces pronounced over a year per 1,000 inhabitants. According to these two indicators, the ranking of countries with the most divorces changes. Note that only more than a hundred countries are listed because they have official statistics.
According to data from 2016, if we take into account the divorce rate, which lists the number of divorces in relation to the number of marriages pronounced over a year in a selected population, it is Portugal which comes first with 71 % of marriages that end in divorce. Luxembourg (66%) and Spain (57%) complete the podium. In the top 10, we also find Denmark (56%), Cuba (56%), Finland (56%), Belgium (54%), France (54%), the Netherlands (53%) , and Russia (52%).
Still according to data from 2016, if we take this time the divorce rate per 1,000 inhabitants, it is Russia which comes first with 4.8 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants, followed by Belarus (4.1) and Gibraltar (3.2). In the top 10, we find the United States with 3.2 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants, Latvia (3.1), Lithuania (3.1), Moldova (3.1), Denmark (3), Cuba (2.9), and finally Ukraine (2.8). France only comes in 39th position with 1.9 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants.
Fewer marriages and simplified procedures
In France precisely, since 2004, there have been around 120,000 divorces per year, with a clear decrease since 2017 (75,000 on average), notably due to the drop in the number of marriages in the country, but also for procedural issues. Indeed, until 2016, divorces were court decisions handed down by the family court judge. Since 2017, following Law No. 2016-1547 of November 18, 2016 on the modernization of justice, divorce procedures can also be recorded by a notary.
These are therefore not taken into account in the statistics presented above. Data from 2017 to 2020 are therefore not strictly comparable with those from previous years. This explains the drop in the divorce rate in France which fell from 54% in 2016 to 46% from 2017. Note that more than half of divorce procedures are carried out by mutual consent to the detriment of conflictual procedures and in particular the divorce for fault which nowadays concerns less than 10% of cases.
Furthermore, the number of marriages is “historically low”, according to INSEE despite a slight increase between 2016 and 2017 (233,000 marriages). Specialists explain this decline in particular due to the popularity of PACS and common-law unions (186,000 PACS in 2017 for example).
More anecdotal but nevertheless interesting, the regions where divorce occurs the most are the Paris region, PACA, Hérault and certain departments in the North of the country. On the other hand, the areas where there are fewer divorces are more rural, Brittany, Lower Normandy, Cantal and Lozère, champion in terms of couple longevity. According to the most recent studies, the divorce rate is exploding in large cities. Paris in the lead, followed by Marseille, Nice, Montpellier and Lille.