Divorce rate down by a third in Abu Dhabi

Divorce rates are steadily declining in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. In the period between 2005 and 2010 incidents of divorce among various nationalities in the emirate fell by 33.3 per cent, showed a report prepared by the Statistics Centre for Abu Dhabi (Scad). The report also pointed to exaggeration of divorce rates in the emirate.

The latest statistical release also gave an analytical study of the rates and trends of marriage and divorce in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and their variations by region, nationality and gender between 2005 and 2010 .

The paper is part of a series of Social Studies conducted by the Centre. The study points out that the high divorce rates published by some consulting firms in their researches about the UAE and the Gulf States in general are inaccurate, said a release from Scad.

The following is the report made available to the Emirates News Agency (WAM) :

Crude Marriage Rate (CMR):.According to the study, the crude marriage rate in a specific region/country in a given year/period of time is defined as the number of marriages (and not the number of married couples) per 1000 population in that region/country during that year/period of time. The study results indicate that the crude marriage rate in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in 2005 was 4 marriages per 1000 population.This rate varied between different regions of the Emirate, reaching its highest level in Al Ain region with (4.5 marriages per 1000 population), followed by Abu Dhabi (4.1 marriages per 1000 population), and finally the Western Region (1.8 marriages per 1000 population).

CMR by Nationality and Gender: Scad's report reveals, the crude marriage rate for 2005 also varied by nationality and gender, reaching its highest value in the case of male nationals (19.3 marriages, to female nationals or non-nationals, per 1000 male nationals), followed by female nationals (17.9 marriages of female nationals to male nationals or non-nationals per 1000 female nationals), then female non-nationals (8.5 marriages for female non-nationals to male nationals or non-nationals per 1000 female non-nationals) and lastly, male non-nationals (3.0 marriages of male non-nationals to female nationals or non-nationals per 1000 male non-nationals).

The CMR by Region: Scad also reported a variation by region in the 2005 crude marriage rates for male and female nationals, with the highest rate recorded in Al Ain at (20.6 and 19.0 marriages per 1000 male and female nationals, respectively), while lowest rate was observed in the Western region and the Islands(14.1, 15.2 marriages per 1000 male and female nationals, respectively).

As for male and female non-nationals, the crude marriage rates reached their highest levels in Abu Dhabi (3.7 and 9.2 marriages per 1000 non-national males and females, respectively), while the lowest rates were recorded in the Western region and the Islands (0.5 and 3.4 marriages per 1000 non-national males and females, respectively).The drop in the rates of non-national male and female marriages may be attributed to the fact that many of them choose to constitute their marriages in their countries of origin.

Trends of the CMR over Time: The study explored the trends exhibited by the crude marriage rate over time by comparing the rates recorded in 2005 with the corresponding values in 2010. The comparison reveals a drop in the crude marriage rate in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi from 4 marriages per 1000 population in 2005 to 3 marriages per 1000 population in 2010, with a percentage of decrease of 25% for the entire period or an average annual drop of 5%.There has also been a decline in the crude marriage rate for male nationals and male non-nationals in the three regions of the Emirate (Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, the Western region and the Islands) in 2010 compared to the corresponding rates in 2005.

Variation of CMR by Nationality and Gender over Time: With respect to female nationals, the crude marriage rate has dropped in both Abu Dhabi and Al Ain between 2005 and 2010, but increased slightly during the same period in the Western region and the Islands (from 15.2 to 15.6 marriages of female nationals to male nationals or non-nationals per 1000 female nationals, between 2005 and 2010, respectively).

As for female non-nationals, the crude marriage rate has dropped in both Abu Dhabi and the Western region and the islands between 2005 and 2010, while it increased marginally during the same period in Al Ain region, (edging up from 7.8 to 8.0 marriages of female non-nationals to male nationals or non-nationals per 1000 female non-nationals, respectively).

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