2016 sees fewer German couples divorced

In Germany, 162,397 marriages were divorced in 2016, almost 1,000 or 0.6 percent fewer than in the previous year.

Besides, the trends towards a longer average age as well as a higher average age of the divorced continued in 2016, the Federal Statistical Office of Germany released on Tuesday.

According to the statistics, the marriages had existed for an average of 15 years until the divorce, with about every sixth divorce occurring after more than 25 years of marriages. On average, the men were 46 years and 7 months old in their divorce in 2016, and the women 43 years and 7 months.

In 1991, however, marriages were divorced after an average of only 11 years and 9 months. Only about one in eleven marriages had been terminated after more than 25 years. The average age of the divorced had been 39 years for men and 36 years for women in 1991, though, at that time people married at a younger age.

In 2016, in 82.6 percent of cases, divorces were preceded by a previous separation period of one year. The married women accounted for 51.3 percent of applications for divorce, husbands for 40.9 percent, and the rest were filed by both.

In total, 132,000 children under the age of 18 were affected by the divorce of their parents in 2016.

In a timeframe from 1991 to 2016, the divorce rate in Germany amounted to 392.6 divorces per 1,000 marriages. As marriages of this cohort may still get divorced in subsequent years, the divorce rate after 30 or 40 years could be even higher.