Total divorce rate in Israel

Shlomo Nahir, Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel

In Israel, there is great considerable interest in examining the chance that a marriage will ever end in divorce. CBS Publications and various studies dealing with factors that affect divorce provide extensive information on the prevalence of divorce, divorce rates in Israel, and the sociological characteristics of couples. However, these publications have not provided an answer to the question: what are the chances that a marriage will ever end in divorce? Therefore, the proposed method for calculating the total divorce rate which is an estimate of the chance that a marriage will ever end in divorce. This rate is computed by adding the divorce rates by duration of marriage for the year in question. The rate doses not take into consideration the effect of mortality or migration. Therefore it can be biased up or down. The aim of the work is to examine the possibility of calculating the total divorce rate in Israel for the general population, religions and different groups. In measuring the total divorce rate in Israel one must take into account Israelis special and unique circumstances. First of all Israel is open to unlimited high immigration (mostly of Jewish) and if Jewish couple marry abroad prior to immigrated to Israel and then divorce in Israel, they are not included in the total divorce rate. The second is the fact that Jewish couples who marry in civil marriage abroad and want to divorce, divorce in Israel. They are also not including in the total divorce rate. The results show that total divorce rate in Israel is between 26%-27% (for the years 2006-2011) compared to 35% in the EU (for the year 2003). However, it should be noted that the rates in Europe may be biased up or down. Conversely rate in Israel is only slightly biased down.