For decades, divorce was treated as a sign that something had gone wrong: A marriage had failed, a family had fractured and a promise had been broken.

But Australia’s latest divorce figures suggest a more complicated story.

The number of divorces granted in Australia rose in 2025, but the longer-term trend remains downward. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 49,158 divorces were granted last year, up 4.1 per cent from 47,216 in 2024. Yet the crude divorce rate was just 2.2 divorces per 1000 people aged 16 and over, well below the 3.3 recorded in 2005.

At first glance, that looks reassuring: Fewer Australians are divorcing than 20 years ago. But there is another story hidden inside the numbers. Australians are marrying less frequently, marrying later and, when marriages do end, increasingly reaching that point in middle age and beyond.

In 2025, there were 118,804 marriages in Australia, 1.7 per cent fewer than the previous year. The marriage rate fell from 5.5 to 5.3 marriages per 1000 people aged 16 and over. Meanwhile, the median age at marriage was 32.7 for men and 31.2 for women.

So the falling divorce rate cannot simply be interpreted as Australians becoming better at staying married. There are fewer marriages in the first place, and that inevitably reduces the pool of people who can eventually divorce.

More revealing is who is getting divorced.

The median age at divorce rose in 2025 to 47.3 for men and 44.4 for........

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