2022 was an exceptional year for marriages and also with fewer divorces in Belgium, figures released last Thursday by the national statistics office Statbel show.
Explaining the rise seen for both, the office cited the end of the pandemic as a signal that legal procedures of matrimony and separation could resume, many of them put off whilst public health restrictions were in place.
Couples could once again get legally married after the imposed lockdowns forced many to cancel plans. In total, 48,482 couples tied the knot, 3,933 more marriages than the average for 2017 to 2019.
Over half of marriage ceremonies took place in Flanders (26,571), while 12,848 and 4,277 got married in Wallonia and Brussels, respectively.
Meanwhile, the divorce rate in Belgium fell below 20,000 for the first time in years (19,347). With the rate of divorces falling; around one in three marriages now ends in a divorce. Of the couples divorced in 2022, 61.8% had children under 25.
Moreover, 41,062 people were widowed last year – a decrease of 1.7% compared to the previous year. Just over 6 in 10 marriages end in the death of a spouse.
The average age at which people lose their spouse rose slightly to 75.5. Men get widowed at an average age of 77.3 and women at 74.7.
In 2022, there were 38,359 new declarations of cohabitation in Belgium, a slight increase compared to 2021. Meanwhile, the number of legal cohabitation terminations increased by 18% – largely because couples who had been unable to get married could at last tie the knot.
