Number of Divorces
Data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia shows that the number of divorces in Slovenia is declining. In each year from 2022 to 2024, around 2,200 divorces were recorded annually. Excluding the COVID year 2020, divorce numbers were last this low in 2000. Given the parallel decline in marriages, this trend is unsurprising and makes divorce-to-marriage ratios more informative than absolute figures.
In the 1960s, there were fewer than 150 divorces per 1,000 marriages. This rose to around 200 by the mid-1990s. The sharp increase came in the early 2000s, peaking in 2005 when 459 divorces occurred per 1,000 marriages, three times the level of the 1960s. Today, the ratio is in the low 300s, roughly one divorce for every three marriages.
Divorce Structure
The structure of divorce has shifted markedly. So-called “grey” or “silver” divorces, occurring after 15 or more years of marriage, have increased substantially over time. Their share rose from 17% in 1956 to a peak of 52% in 2006. While divorces after long marriages remain the most common, their share has been declining since the mid-2000s and stood at 44% in 2024. At the same time, divorces after 5 to 14 years of marriage are increasing and are now at their highest level in the past 20 years. Divorces of very short marriages, lasting less than one year, remain rare but are also rising and represented 1,8% of all divorces in 2024 (the last time this share was as high was in 1993).
Divorcing couples increasingly have no children. The share of divorces without children rose from 35% in 1956 to nearly 50% in 2024. This reflects both declining fertility and changing marriage patterns, with fewer couples having children before divorce occurs.
Finally, the popular joke that people either married or divorced during COVID does not hold up in the data. Divorce numbers in 2020 and 2021 were among the lowest of the past 20 years.
