Spain's National Institute of Statistics has released an in-depth report on contemporary divorce in Spain as of 2014. Highlights:
- The per-capita divorce rate (including annulments and separations) is 0.23% (i.e., 0.46% of the whole population gets divorced each year, since a divorce involves two people).That was a 5.4% increase over 2013. The 2014 rate was the same as the US's third-lowest-divorce state, Louisiana. The report breaks rates down by region; they ranged from 0.18% (still higher than our lowest-divorce state, Iowa) to 2.8% (still low by US standards, the same as long-time low-divorce states RI,NY, NJ, SD & ND).
- 95% of these cases were divorces, 5% were separations, and 0.1% were annulments.
- 76% were by mutual consent; 24% were contested. But separations were 85% mutual-consent.
- 76% of divorces and 86% of separations took six months or less from court filing to resolution. Median duration was 4.4 months. The median for mutual-consent cases was 2.8 months, and for contested cases it was 9.6 months.
- 57% of cases were jointly filed. 27% were filed by the wife, 16% by the husband.
- The median length of marriages at the time of divorce, legal separation or annulment was 15.8 years. The median for divorce was 15.4 years, and for legal separation it was 22.2 years. For annulments, 7.4 years. 30% of divorces were in marriages of 20 years or more. 23.5% were in marriages of 6 to 10 years.
- The highest-divorce age bracket for both men and women was the forties. Median age at divorce was 45 for men, 42 for women; at legal separation, 50 for men, 48 for women.
- 53% of cases involved minor children, and another 4% involved "dependent adult" children. Only 21% of cases with minor children included shared custody (up from 18% in 2013). There was no indication of how shared custody was defined. 73% of mothers and 5% of fathers had sole custody.
- 58% of cases included child support orders. 78% of these were payable by the man, 5% by the woman, and 17% were by both. 10% of cases include spousal support, and in 92% of those, the payor is the man.
- In 85% of cases, both parties were Spanish. In 11%, one party was foreign, and in 6%, both were. (Note rounding)
- Most of the statistics above carefully stated that they only covered heterosexual cases.
"Statistics on Annulments, Separations and Divorces, Year 2014"; National Institute of Statistics, Press Notes, Sept. 15, 2015.
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