14% rise in divorce rates in Egypt

A bride and groom are showered with money as they dance during a wedding in the Egyptian Nile Delta province of al-Minufiyah on May 20, 2016. (Photo by MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images)

Egypt has seen a 14 per cent increase in the divorce rate compared to a slight 0.5 per cent increase in marriage rates, according to the official statistics agency, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS).

CAPMAS’ Annual Bulletin of Marriage and Divorce Statistics for the year 2021 indicated that the number of marriage deeds issued in the country reached 880,041 in 2021 compared to 876,015 in 2020; a slight increase of 0.5 per cent. Divorces, however, rose to 245,777, compared to 222,036 cases the previous year, an increase of 14.7 per cent.

The highest percentage of marriages was in the 25-30 year age group, wherein the number of marriages reached 352,259 contracts, representing 40 per cent of the total deeds. People aged 70 and over had the lowest marriage rates with just 4,662 contracts. The average age of marriage was 30.7 in 2021.

READ: Egypt’s government-owned companies have shady employment policies

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.