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Divorces in Australia

Marriage and Divorce Trends in Australia

  |   Family Law

Statistics might at first glance seem quite dry, but take a deeper look at what the numbers reveal about marriage and divorce in Australia, and you might just be surprised. For example, did you know that less people are formalising their relationships with marriage these days? Or that more women are applying for divorce than men, and nearly half of all divorces involve children? These recent figures reveal a host of interesting information when it comes to marriage and divorce trends in Australia today.

 

Marriage rates declining

 

According to the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS), less people are getting married. The crude marriage rate, defined as the number of registered marriages per 1,000 of the estimated resident population in a calendar year, has fallen from 6.4 in 1993, to 5.1 in 2013. In fact, there were 118,962 registered marriages across the country in 2013, down 4,282 from 2012. Although the decrease in the marriage rate is partly due to an increase in the overall population, fluctuations in the marriage rate are also due to changes in society’s attitudes surrounding marriage.

 

De facto relationships

 

While formal marriage rates may have fallen, many Australians of course choose to live in de facto relationships. This varies greatly by age group, peaking among those aged between 25 and 29. This category includes same-sex as well as opposite-sex partnerships.

 

In 2009-10, 11% (1.9 million) of Australians aged 18 years and over were living in a de facto relationship. The proportion of people aged 20-29 years living in a de facto relationship was 22%, double what it was in 1992. The rate for people aged 40-49 years has also nearly doubled during this time.
The rise of cohabitation

 

More and more couples are also choosing to live together before marriage. The rates of cohabitation have increased over the last two decades. In the early 1990s, cohabitation preceded just over half of all registered marriages. In 2013, 76.6% of couples cohabited before they tied the knot.

 

Australians older when they get married for the first time

 

The average age of Aussies when they first get married has increased over the past 20 years. There are a number of reasons for this, including people undertaking higher education and the associated delay in getting into the workforce, and the increasing social acceptance of cohabitation before marriage.

 

According to the ABS, the median age at first marriage for men was 29.6 years and 27.9 years for women in 2010, an increase of more than three years since 1990 (26.5 years and 24.3 years respectively). In 2013, the median age of males and females at marriage was 31.5 and 29.5 years respectively.

 

The trend of marrying later in life
Australians also appear to be getting married later in life. In the 20 years to 2010, the age-specific marriage rate more than halved in the 20-24 age group, dropping to 16.1 per 1,000 men (down from 44.0 in 1990), and 28.4 per 1,000 women (down from 66.0 in 1990).

 

Conversely, in middle age groups, the rate increased. In 1990, the marriage rate for men aged 30-34 years was 27.7 per 1,000 men, rising to 35.7 in 2010. During this time the rate for women in this age group also increased from 20.8 to 31.4 per 1,000 women.
Now what about divorce?

 

So that’s a small snapshot of what’s happening with marriage in Australia today. So what about divorce? The crude divorce rate in Australia has fluctuated, but has remained reasonably steady over the past decade.

 

In 2008, the divorce rate was 2.2. It went up slightly to 2.3 in 2009, stayed steady at 2.3 in 2010, before dropping back to 2.2 in 2010/2011. In 2013, it was down again at 2.1. In 2013, there were 47,638 divorces granted in Australia, a decrease of 2,279 from the previous year.

 

The divorce rate was actually higher in the late 90s, 2.7 and 2.8 in 1998 and 1999 respectively.The biggest peak of 4.9 was in 1976, after the Family Law Act 1975 came into effect, with no-fault divorce legislation.

 

Years to divorce
Marriages are also lasting slightly longer before breaking down. The median length of time before divorcing has increased by two years in recent times, from 10.2 years in 1990 to 12.1 years in 2010. The median age at divorce for men was 44.8 in 2013, and 42.2 for women.

 

Divorce and children

 

Between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of divorces involving children decreased from 56% to 49%. In 2013, 47.4% of the divorces in Australia involved children. Divorces between couples with children aged less than 18-years-old have made up around half of all divorces in Australia in recent years.

 

Who files for divorce?

 

Women were more likely to file for divorce than men in 2013, accounting for 32.9% of applications, compared to 25.9% by men. Joint applications accounted for 41.2% of divorces.

 

International comparisons
There are also some broad marriage and divorce trends across the world as well. Divorce rates tend to be higher in English-speaking countries.

 

Unsurprisingly, those countries that are least secularised generally have the lowest divorce rates. Italy has a low divorce rate at 0.9, while Turkey and Iran stand at 1.4. Russia is higher at 5.0. The Vatican and the Philippines are the only countries where divorce is illegal.
Australia is also one of the few nations that operates by the no-fault divorce principle; others include the US, Canada and Malta.

 

The stats cannot tell us everything about contemporary Australian partnerships, but they do reveal quite a bit. Australians are delaying marriage and marrying at an older age, are choosing to cohabit before marrying, and are divorcing at a similar rate to in the past.