Definition: Total divorce rate

Category: Demography

The mean number of divorces per marriage in a given year. This number is not weighted according to the structure of marriage duration, i.e. the size of the different marriage cohorts is assumed to be the same. The total divorce rate is computed by adding the divorce rates by duration of marriage for the year in question. It does not separate out the different marriage cohorts and is not the divorce rate of any specific marriage cohort; rather, it is the divorce rate of a hypothetical generation subjected at each age to the current marriage conditions. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/statmanuals/files/KS-CC-03-005-EN.pdf