Here’s how old the average South African is when they get married – and when they get divorced

 ·28 Mar 2020

Statistics SA has published a new report highlighting how many South Africans are getting married and divorced.

The report focuses on civil marriages, customary marriages and civil unions that were registered in 2018 in the South African national marriage registration systems maintained by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).

This includes trends in the number of marriages and unions as well as demographic and other dynamics among married partners.

The report shows that a total of 131,240 civil marriages, 3,160 customary marriages and 1,650 civil unions were registered in 2018.

In comparison with the 2017 data, the stats show that the registration of civil marriages decreased by 3.1% whereas customary marriages and civil unions increased by 22.1% and 21.6% respectively.

The median age for grooms increased from 35 years in 2017 to 36 years in 2018 while the median age for bridegrooms increased from 33 years in 2017 to 34 years in 2018.

Divorce 

The release also reported on divorces that were granted by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

There were 25,284 completed divorce forms processed in 2018, indicating a decrease of 0.4% from the 25,390 divorces processed in 2017.

There were more women 13,218 (52.3%) than men 8,791 (34.8%) divorcees who filed the divorce in 2018. The median ages at divorce in 2018 were 45 years for men and 41 years for women.

Four in 10 divorces 11,204 (44.3%) of the 25,284 in 2018 came from marriages that did not spend their tenth wedding anniversary.

A high proportion of husbands (26.2%) and wives (29.7%) did not specify the type of occupation they were engaged in at the time of divorce. In addition, 18.7% and 24.9% of husbands and wives respectively were not economically active at the time of divorce.

Most male divorcees were managers and administrators 3,435 (13.6%) and 3,113 (12.3%) were employed in professional, semi-professional and technical occupations while female divorcees were largely in professional, semi-professional and technical occupations 3,761 (14.9%) and clerical and sales occupations 2,986 (11.8%).


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