Here’s a question for you. Which country in the world has the most divorces per capita of population and, when considering your reply, bear in mind that England and Wales (at around 3 per 1,000 people), do not feature anywhere near the top of the list.
Figures produced in 2021 show that the countries with the highest divorce rates per 1,000 people, are the Maldives (5.52), Kazakstan (4.6), Russia (4.4), and Belarus and Belgium at (3.7). In fact the Maldives were awarded a Guinness World Record for the highest divorce rate on record in 2002, with 10.97 divorces per 1,000 Maldivians. This was over twice as high as the second highest divorce rate ever recorded. Those countries with the lowest rates are India (0.01), Mozambique (0.04), Kenya (0.06), Zimbabwe (0.07) and Vietnam (0.2).
There are many reasons for the variance in figures; culture, religion, accessibility to divorce, attitudes to pre and post marital sex and single parenthood, female emancipation, economics and the response to global crisis like covid.
In the western world, because of more liberal attitudes and the financial cost of a wedding, there has also been a decline in the number of people getting married. Indeed, it is reported that by 2050, the annual number of marriages in the UK could fall below 200,000. Predicting the continuation of the current downward trend, the figure is expected to fall to around 175,137 representing a huge 28% decline from 2019.
Revisions to our legal system by the introduction of ‘no fault divorce’, plus a simple on-line process for applying for divorce and a legal directive requiring couples to consider processes that provide non-court divorce resolution are slowly beginning to change the face of divorce. The objective is that only the most acrimonious of cases will end up in court.
However, without knowing how to navigate the legal maze it is easy to make the wrong and expensive decisions and that’s where we help.
We are a team of 5 experienced lawyers but, what makes us different to a firm of solicitors, is that we are acting as divorce consultants. We help people navigate the legal maze and stop them making expensive mistakes. We use our experience of the divorce process to find solutions to lower the temperature and save money.
If the above resonates or you know someone who may benefit from speaking to us, please do contact me. We don’t charge for an initial consultation.