Statistics on marriage and divorce

The Australian Bureau of Statistics ("ABS") has just released the 2013 statistics on marriage and divorce in Australia.

The key points from 2013 are:

• There were 118,962 marriages registered - this is a decrease of 3.5% from 2012;
• The majority of brides (81.3%) and grooms (79.7%) had not been married before;
• 76.6% of couples lived together prior to marriage. This was down by 1%;
• The median age for marriage was 31.5 years for males and 29.5 years for females. 

• There were 47,638 divorces granted - this is a decrease of 4.6% from 2012;
• The median duration of marriage was 12.1 years. This has been steadily decreasing from 12.6 years in 2005;
• The median age for divorce was 44.8 years for men and 42.2 years for women;
• 47.4% of applications involve marriages where there are children;
• 41.2% of applications for divorce were joint applications.