DIVORCES IN SPAIN
As I have written before (see Controversial Spain), one of the surprises about Spain is that it is, to all intents and purposes, not the staid and conservative country it may seem from afar. Indeed, common misconceptions about the culture of Spain are that Spain is a bulwark of Catholicism and ‘old fashioned’ family values – all set amidst a rosy ambience of secure marriages and nuclear families.
In fact, Spain is as irreligious as the UK and has an exceptionally high divorce rate. This was reaffirmed last week by the Instituto de Política Familiar (IPF) whose report on divorce in Spain stated that there was a separation or divorce in Spain every 4.1 minutes – an increase of 2.45% from 2009. Indeed, the total separations and divorces in Spain, for the year, amounted to 127,633.
Interestingly, in the past year, the Comunidad de Valencia had the greatest increase in the number of divorces and separations. This, of course, may have much to do with the the Valencian Community being particularly hard hit by the present economic crisis – which has, doubtless, caused massive financial hardship and stress for many families.
In fact, the unemployment rate for the whole of Spain rose (in March 2011) by 0.8% to reach 4.333 million people, the highest recorded figure since the current method of recording these statistics started in 1996. It seems unlikely, therefore, that the divorce rate is set to decline in the short term…
Of course, until 1981 (incredibly!) it was not even possible to get divorced in Spain. This is far from the case here now and some people actually think that it has become too easy to get divorced – particularly after an ‘express divorce law’ was passed in 2006 allowing a Spaniard to get divorced after only three months of marriage.
RELEVANT INFORMATION
ON THE ROCKS – DIVORCE AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN SPAIN