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Divorce Rate

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Divorce Rates by Country 2024

Snapshot

  • The Maldives, with a divorce rate of 5.52 per 1000 people, leads the world in divorces, partly due to cultural factors and women's empowerment.

  • COVID-19 pandemic led to a global decrease in both marriage and divorce rates, with notable drops in countries like Slovenia and Hungary.

  • Countries with the lowest divorce rates, like Sri Lanka and Vietnam, may reflect legal difficulties or societal barriers rather than marital satisfaction.

Marriage is a sacrament that bonds two people together for life, creating a legal, cultural, and/or religious connection between them that impacts everything from their name and address to their future family. Marriage is a cultural universal, an institution so fundamental to the human experience that there are no known examples of a society that functions without it. People marry for many reasons, including love, companionship, the desire to build a family, financial stability, social status, and religious fulfillment, and in nearly every case the marriage is considered a watershed event in the participants’ lives.

Divorce and its causes

Sometimes, however, the bonds of marriage break. According to the United States' National Center for Health Statistics, approximately 4-5 million people get married every year in the U.S. ... and approximately 42-53% of those marriages eventually end in divorce.

Divorce has many possible causes, including infidelity, financial problems, loss of intimacy, substance abuse, domestic abuse, lack of commitment, moral or religious differences, and simply growing apart. Whatever the reason, divorce is not a uniquely American scenario. Divorce happens all over the world—in fact, it may be every bit as universal as marriage itself.

How to calculate divorce rate

Divorce rates can be calculated multiple ways, but one of the simplest methods utilizes census data. Dividing the number of divorces in a given year by total population yields the crude divorce rate. This metric is typically expressed as a number per 1000 people. For example, if 100,000 people lived in a nation and there were 500 divorces in a year, the divorce rate would be five divorces per 1,000 residents.

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Divorce Rates (annually, per 1000 people)*

*Data is most recent available per country. 2018-China; 2019-Cuba; all others 2020-21

According to data from the United Nations and other sources, the country with the highest divorce rate in the world in 2020 was the Maldives, which recorded 2984 divorces against a population of 540,544, resulting in a divorce rate of 5.52 per 1000 people. This is actually a notable step down from the country's widely publicized rate of 10.97 in 2002, which earned the country a Guinness World Record.

Why are divorces so frequent in the Maldives? One common explanation is that the island nation's citizens frown upon physical relations outside of marriage, but both marriages and divorces are quite easy to obtain, so they marry quickly and divorce with minimal complication if the relationship fails. What's more, a cultural shift is currently taking place in the Maldives, with women becoming more empowered and more able to fend for themselves financially, enabling them to leave marriages that aren't working.

The former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan endured the second-highest divorce rate in the world in 2020, with 4.6 divorces for every 1000 people. Close behind are Russia (3.9), Belgium (3.7), and Belarus (3.7). The United States lands in a four-way tie for spots 9-12 on the list, with an annual divorce rate of 2.7 per 1000 people. In the U.S., Nevada has the highest divorce rate of any state at 14%.

The effect of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic on divorce rates

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 had a remarkable impact on nearly every aspect of everyday life, including rates of marriage and divorce. Overall, marriage rates dropped significantly in 2020, largely due to pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions on public gatherings. What's more, divorce rates also dropped significantly, from .2 to .4 points in most cases, in nearly every country in the world.

For example, Slovenia's divorce rate dropped from 1.2 in 2019 to .8 in 2020. Similarly, Hungary dropped from 1.8 to 1.5, Seychelles went from 1.9 to 1.7, and the Dominican Republic plummeted from 2.5 to 1.2. Oddly, Denmark, considered one of the top 10 countries to live in, reversed the trend and saw its divorce rate leap from 1.8 to 2.7 during the 2020 pandemic.

Top 10 Countries with the Lowest Divorce Rates (annually, per 1000 people)*

*Data is most recent available per country, typically between 2017-2020.

On the other side of the coin, several nations have quite low divorce rates. Based upon available data, the country with the lowest divorce rate in the world is Sri Lanka, with a divorce rate of 0.15 divorces per 1,000 residents. Vietnam and Guatemala have the next lowest rate at 0.2 divorces per every 1,000 residents. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Peru, and South Africa rank 4th through 6th, then a nine-way tie at .70/1000 creates a logjam that soaks up spots 7-15.

It should be noted that a low divorce rate does not necessarily mean that a country's citizens have blissful, thriving marriages. In some countries, divorces may be more difficult to legally obtain, or wives may be unable to leave a bad marriage because they fear for their safety, or for their children's safety, or because they lack the financial wherewithal (or societal opportunity) to support the family on their own. In fact, if one takes the top 6 countries with the lowest divorce rates and tracks their scores on the United Nations' 2019 Gender Inequality Index (GII), they rank as follows:

Gender Inequality Index (GII) of top 6 countries with the lowest divorce rates (out of 162 countries, lower GII is better):

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

By comparison, all but three of the top 13 countries with the highest divorce rates placed within the top 50 in terms of gender equality. In light of these data, it is important to resist drawing conclusions about married life in a given country based upon its divorce rate alone.

Divorce rate and its connection to marriage rate

In fact, divorce rate on its own cannot even give a clear idea of how frequent divorces are in a given country. This is because the divorce rate is a measure of divorces as a percentage of the total population, not in relation to the total number of marriages. Why does this matter? Because the United States' 2019's rate of 2.7 new divorces per 1000 people would be quite impressive if all 1000 of those people were married, but shockingly worrisome if only 50 out of 1000 were married. For that reason, divorce rates are often viewed alongside a country's overall marriage rate. They may even be combined to produce a rough marriage/divorce ratio or percentage.

For example, if one matches the United States' 2019's rate of 2.7 new divorces per 1000 people to the number of marriages that took place in 2019—6.1 per 1000 people—it works out to one new divorce for every 2.26 new marriages, a divorce percentage of just over 44%. These are arguably more insightful and relatable numbers than "2.7 divorces per 1000 people." Of course, even this calculation is not entirely precise—divorce rates should ideally be compared to the marriage rates from the year each dissolving marriage was initially created, not the current year. However, it is nonetheless a useful (and much easier to compute) ballpark estimate for times when more granular data is unavailable.

- The crude divorce rate refers to the number of divorces per 1,000 persons of the mean population.

Download Table Data

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Country
Divorce Rate
Marriage Rate
# of Divorces
# of Marriages
Data Year
Maldives5.522023
Kazakhstan4.62023
Russia3.92023
Belarus3.56.433,15260,7142018
China3.27.21,893,0002018
Moldova310,6372012
Ukraine2.95.2121,381214,0132021
Lithuania2.867,82216,7952021
Cyprus2.68.92,3087,8462019
United States2.52023
Libya2.510.82008
Costa Rica2.55.32010
Latvia2.564,64311,2282021
Australia2.46.149,241127,1612022
Taiwan2.35.72018
Sweden2.33.725,61938,8952021
Iraq2.2473,5692018
Denmark2.24.715,65127,6432021
Finland2.23.513,47819,5792021
Kuwait2.25.22010
Trinidad and Tobago2.26.32005
Luxembourg2.231,4001,9452021
Hong Kong2.1427,8632020
Canada2.14.42020
Saudi Arabia2.15.62020
Georgia2.14.397,64316,3592020
Czech Republic24.521,10746,7782021
Egypt1.95.792010
France1.93.7128,0432016
Belgium1.93.522,17240,8452021
Hungary1.97.414,97972,0302021
Switzerland1.94.116,21035,1602020
Singapore1.96.82015
Estonia1.94.62,5556,0932020
Iceland1.956911,8502020
Seychelles1.917.42014
United Kingdom1.84.4118,505287,3282016
South Korea1.83.793,232191,6902022
Jordan1.86.72019
Greece1.84.719,1902017
Israel1.86.52009
Norway1.83.39,82517,6992020
Cuba1.795.22010
Japan1.74.82019
Turkey1.76.82018
Germany1.74.3142,751357,7852021
Spain1.73.7481,302172,8712022
Portugal1.72.817,27929,0572021
Austria1.74.414,87039,6622020
New Zealand1.682019
Iran1.611.22017
Algeria1.610.12013
Poland1.64.560,687168,3242021
Malaysia1.66.42019
Kyrgyzstan1.69.72010
Lebanon1.69.52007
Bermuda1.63.92020
Netherlands1.53.225,96256,4192021
Bulgaria1.53.910,02126,6202021
Slovakia1.54.88,29526,3502021
Jamaica1.57.52011
Bahamas1.55032,3662000
San Marino1.56.1492032012
Thailand1.45.52005
Italy1.43.183,192180,4162021
Romania1.4622,785114,2072021
Azerbaijan1.43.4914,62835,3482020
Tajikistan1.413.52007
Serbia1.44.89,79032,7572021
Mauritius1.48.22010
Syria1.310.62006
Croatia1.34.65,10018,2032021
Suriname1.34.22007
Mexico1.22022
Guatemala1.23.82008
Tunisia1.22022
Montenegro1.25.27683,1962021
Tonga1.27.12003
Bangladesh1.12016
Uzbekistan1.17.82006
Ecuador1.15.092006
Mongolia1.13.42010
Albania1.173,11319,7092021
Armenia1.14.113,15512,1792020
Qatar1.13.32011
Slovenia1.12.81,7745,9162021
Panama13.72010
North Macedonia16.81,96413,3372021
Uruguay0.862019
Antigua and Barbuda0.82638482015
El Salvador0.84.382006
Colombia0.72.32007
Venezuela0.72022
Chile0.73.32009
United Arab Emirates0.72.82006
Ireland0.74.63,4122017
Bosnia and Herzegovina0.64.82,29418,2352012
Malta0.64.43202,2762021
South Africa0.42022
Vietnam0.22023
Sri Lanka0.152023
Zimbabwe0.072022
Kenya0.062022
Mozambique0.042022
India0.012022
showing: 105 rows

Which country has the highest divorce rate?

Maldives has the highest divorce rate in the world.

Are divorce rates in the US amongst the highest in the world?

The US is tied for the 13th-highest divorce rate in the world, so its divorce rate is higher than most other countries.

Which country has the lowest divorce rate?

India has the lowest divorce rate in the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources