EU residents today are getting divorced twice as often as 55 years ago. If in 1965 there were only 8 divorces per 10 thousand inhabitants, now there are already 20 divorces. Such data are provided by the European statistical agency Eurostat, writes Europulse.

Most often, marriages end in divorce in Lithuania and Latvia (there are 31 divorces per 10 thousand inhabitants), Denmark (26 divorces) and Sweden (25 divorces). And the least often divorced in Malta and Ireland (7 divorces per 10 thousand inhabitants), as well as in Slovenia (11 divorces).

The legislation of several countries prohibited divorce in 1965. In Italy, divorce was legalized only in 1970, in Portugal in 1975 (although the marriage could be dissolved between 1910 and 1940), in Spain in 1981, in Ireland in 1996, and in Malta in 2011..

The number of marriages in the EU countries has halved since 1965: from 78 to 44 marriages per 10 thousand inhabitants. Now, most often, relations are legalized by residents of Cyprus (there are 78 marriages per 10 thousand inhabitants) and Romania (74 marriages). And in Luxembourg, Italy and Portugal there are fewer marriages than in other EU countries - from 31 to 34 per 10 thousand inhabitants. Another manifestation of this process is that more and more Europeans are born out of wedlock..