Cape Town - More black South Africans are getting divorced than ever before, and across all population groups more women tend to initiate divorce proceedings than men.
This was just some marriage and divorce data across the country released yesterday by Statistics SA from a survey conducted in 2021.
The data is based on 18208 completed divorce forms that Stats SA processed from the Department of Home Affairs. It shows that 40%, or four in 10, divorces in 2021 were from marriages that did not reach their 10th anniversary.
Sharing her thoughts on the high rates of divorce, relationship therapist Suzanne Duncan suggested a lack of intimacy could be one reason.
“Relationships struggle and partners feel unhappy when there is insufficient emotional intimacy between them,” Duncan said.
Couples who do not know how to strengthen and sustain emotional intimacy, or are unaware that emotional intimacy is the key to longterm relationships, live unfulfilled and unhappily, she said.
Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke said 50.4% of the 18 208 divorces granted in 2021 were from the black African population, followed by whites at 20.1%, coloureds at 17.6%, Indians/Asians at 4.8% and divorces from mixed marriages at 2.7%.
Maluleke said in 2021, about 143 divorces were granted for same-sex couples and about 17 345 children under 18 were affected by the divorces.
The largest number (26.6%) of divorces occurred in marriages that lasted between five and nine years. This group is followed by marriages that lasted between 10 and 14 years (21.3%) and marriages that lasted for less than five years (16%).
Stats SA said both male and female divorcees were largely employed in professional, semi-professional and technical occupations, but 22.1% of husbands and 28.5% of wives were not economically active/unemployed at the time of divorce.
Gauteng had 4 859 divorces, the Western Cape 3 833, KwaZulu-Natal 2 851 and the Eastern Cape 2 138 divorces. Maluleke said together the four provinces contributed 75.1% of the divorces granted in 2021.
The last statistics for 2020 showed marriages were becoming less common in South Africa – the number of people getting married had fallen steadily from 2011 to 2020.
Stats SA said the high decline in marriages during 2020 may have been attributable to the pandemic restrictions on gatherings.
In 2021, marriages rebounded somewhat, with 106 499 civil marriages registered, more than half of these being solemnised by Home Affairs marriage officers.
The highest number of civil marriages was registered in Gauteng (26 522), followed by KwaZulu-Natal (17 253) and the Western Cape (16 150). The lowest number was registered in the Northern Cape at 3198.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za