Abu Bakr al-Gendy, head of official statistics agency CAPMAS, announced this week that marriage rates in Egypt were nearly five times higher than those for divorce in 2009.
“There were some 759,000 marriage contracts signed in 2009, meaning some 2080 contracts per day, 78 per hour and 1.5 per minute,” al-Gendy said at a press conference on Thursday.
“Cases of divorce, meanwhile, stood at about 141,500 for the same year, meaning 387 divorces per day, 16 per hour and one every three minutes,” he added.
Al-Gendy went on to explain that the highest proportion of these had been cases of khulaa divorce, by which women filed for divorces from their husbands. He said that the number of irrevocable court judgments on divorce stood at 1863 in 2009, representing 66.2 percent of the total of 2815 divorce judgments.
He added that marriage rates in cities tended to be lower than those in rural areas, noting that the average age for marriage ranged from 25 to 30 years old.
He also pointed out that the highest divorce rates in the country were in the 6 October governorate, whereas the lowest could be found in the Upper Egyptian Assuit governorate.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
