Five years after the legalisation of same-sex marriage, gay couples are encountering the flipside of marriage equality: divorce, although not yet in equal measure.
There were 473 same-sex divorces in Australia in 2021 – 306 female couples and 167 male couples – the first year the data was gathered and published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Tuesday will mark five years since the results of the postal survey on marriage equality were announced.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
There were 2842 same-sex marriages in that year – 1771 female couples and 1072 male couples – continuing a trend that indicates female couples are more likely to tie the knot than males. The divorce statistics released on Thursday suggest male and female same-sex marriages break down at roughly the same rates.
Former Liberal MP Tim Wilson, who married his partner Ryan Bolger just months after the law changed, said: “Turns out those who used to joke ‘if gays wanted to be miserable too, good luck to them’ were right. The stats show 473 same-sex couples are just as good at having miserable marriages ending in divorce as heterosexual couples.” [Bolger and Wilson are still happily married.]
It will take some time for the same-sex divorce rate to materialise and become statistically valid. Same-sex couples have only been able to marry legally since the start of 2018, and the median duration of a marriage in Australia is about 8.5 years to separation and 12 years to divorce.
In total, 89,164 marriages and 56,244 divorces were registered in Australia in 2021.
The proportion of all marriages performed by ministers of religion fell again – slightly – to a record low of 19.3 per cent. In 2001, that figure was 46.9 per cent. This trend has stabilised in recent years, with civil celebrants consistently performing more than 80 per cent of marriage ceremonies.
However, the proportion varies in different areas – religious ministers typically officiate about a quarter of marriages in NSW, the highest rate of any state or territory.
ABS director of health and vital statistics James Eynstone-Hinkins said marriage numbers in NSW and Victoria were again dampened by COVID-19 restrictions in 2021, although they recovered from the record low of 2020.
“Marriages in other states and territories were less impacted, with numbers in Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and [the] Northern Territory almost returning to pre-pandemic levels,” he said. In an ordinary year, more than 110,000 couples marry nationwide.
The crude divorce rate appeared to increase in 2021, to 2.2 divorces per 1000 people, compared with 1.9 or 2.0 in previous years. However, the ABS said the Federal Circuit and Family Court advised the higher number was partly related to administrative changes to speed up divorce applications.
In 2021, the median age for men to marry was 29.6 years, while the median age at separation was 41.9 and the median age at divorce was 45.9.
For women, the median age at marriage was 27.3, the median age at separation was 39.1 and the median age at divorce was 43.
Tuesday will mark five years since the ABS announced the results of the same-sex marriage postal survey, ending years of political turmoil in which both major parties failed to legalise marriage equality despite widespread public support.
The “yes” vote of 61.6 per cent in the voluntary mail-in poll – with a participation rate of 80 per cent – led the federal parliament to make the change in the final weeks of 2017.
The ABS data shows nearly 18,000 same-sex couples married in the first four years since it became legal. While the initial burst of same-sex weddings – 6538 in 2018 – has dissipated, the number is going up again with the end of COVID-19 restrictions, and should by now exceed 20,000 nationally.
Figures from the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages show there were 1061 same-sex marriages in that state between January 1 and September 30 this year, more than the 824 registered in all of 2021.
In total, 7142 same-sex couples have married in NSW since the law was changed – 4008 female and 3134 male.
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