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Share of marriages in England and Wales that ended in divorce

See all data and research on:
Marriages & Divorces

What you should know about this indicator

The decrease in the number of divorces between 2017 and 2018, and the increase between 2018 and 2019 can be partly attributed to a delay in the processing of divorce applications by divorce centres. A backlog of divorce petitions made in 2017 were not processed until 2018, resulting in fewer completed divorces in 2018 and more completed divorces in 2019.

Divorces data for 2022 and marriages data for 2020 are the latest data which have been used in the production of this table. Marriages data for 2021 are not currently available and so this table is not complete.

Share of marriages in England and Wales that ended in divorce
The cumulative percentage of marriages that have ended in divorce by the anniversary year of marriage.
Source
Office for National Statistics (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 12, 2025
Next expected update
January 2026
Date range
1963–2017
Unit
%

Related research and writing

A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Marriages and Divorces by Our World in Data

Marriages and Divorces

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Annual divorce numbers and rates, by duration of marriage, sex, to whom granted, and reason.

Retrieved on
January 12, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/datasets/divorcesinenglandandwales
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Office for National Statistics (ONS), released22 February 2024, ONS website, dataset, Divorces in England and Wales, UK. Retrieved 12 January 2025.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share of marriages in England and Wales that ended in divorce”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2020) - “Marriages and Divorces”. Data adapted from Office for National Statistics. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/marriages-uk-ended-in-divorce [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Office for National Statistics (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Office for National Statistics (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of marriages in England and Wales that ended in divorce” [dataset]. Office for National Statistics, “Divorces in England and Wales” [original data]. Retrieved January 19, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/marriages-uk-ended-in-divorce