Marriages down, divorces up in EU: statistics

New patterns of family formation continue to encroach upon more traditional family models in the European Union (EU), according to the latest statistics from Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, released on Friday.

Despite 1.9 million marriages in the 27 EU member states in 2017, the marriage rate declined from 7.8 per 1,000 persons in 1965 to 4.4 in 2017.

With an estimated 0.8 million divorces in the EU in 2017, the divorce rate more than doubled from 0.8 per 1,000 persons in 1965 to 2 in 2017.

"Part of this increase may be due to the fact that in several EU member states divorce was legalized during the period (for example in Italy, Spain, Ireland and Malta)," Eurostat said.

In 2018, the divorce rates were the highest in Latvia and Lithuania (both 3.1 divorces per 1,000 persons), Denmark (2.6) and Sweden (2.5), and the lowest in Malta (0.7).

Meanwhilem, the proportion of live births outside marriage in the EU increased from 25.4 percent in 2000 to an estimated 42.4 percent in 2018.