We Spaniards are getting divorced less and less. This is reflected in the latest data from the INEwhich show that during the year 2022 there were 84,551 marital dissolutions (the sum of divorces, separations and annulments), which represents a decrease in 6,7% regarding 2021.
The decrease in breakups, experts explain, is also due to a decrease in the number of marriages. This has been the trend in recent years, only interrupted in 2022, when there was a specific rebound in weddings (179,107, the highest number in the last decade). An increase that is attributed to the celebration of weddings that were postponed due to the pandemic. “It is logical that, after this decline and with the return to normality of social relations, it has grown,” he says. Marta Seizprofessor of Sociology at UNED.
The decrease in the number of weddings is influenced by a cultural factor: they are no longer conceived as a goal that must necessarily be achieved in life, and they have been replaced by other forms of coexistence, such as de facto couples, which are experiencing an increase progressive and sustained during recent years. “They are no longer just a stage prior to marriage, but have been established as a socially accepted situation to have children and start a family,” says Seiz.
Those who do formalize their relationship as a marriage tend to do so less and less for the Church. Of the 179,107 weddings that took place in 2022, only 19,4% They were ecclesiastical. In 2011 they represented the 39,06% of the total (63,805 Catholic weddings out of 163,338) while in 2001, three out of every four Spaniards who got married, the 73,2%they did it for the Church: 152,067 marriages out of 207,492.
The average age of the couple in 2022 was almost 38 years, four more than in 2011 and seven more than in 2001. Regarding the duration of marriages, the Spanish average is 16.5 years. The usual thing, when it comes to separating, is to do it by mutual agreement: in 2022, the majority of divorces (the 80%) were produced in this way. “Couples usually reach an agreement to dissolve their union without it being necessary to resort to a judicial process,” Seiz confirms.
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