Decline in Rate of Divorce and Separation Filings in Denmark in 2020 Compared with Previous Years

• Main Author: Peter Fallesen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2021-04-01
• Series: Socius
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231211009991

The radical changes to everyday life brought on by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the closure of nonfamily social spheres in particular may have impacted marriage dynamics. The author provides evidence on the monthly rates of initiation of divorce and separation filings in Denmark for the period from 2016 to 2020 to examine how filing behavior changed during 2020 compared with the four previous years. Because filing precedes divorce, rates reflect more precisely the temporal dynamic of divorce initiation. Rates of initiation of divorce filings declined in 2020 to the lowest level across the period from 2016 to 2020. On average, monthly rates in 2020 were 7 percent lower than 2019 rates and 20 percent lower than 2016 rates. There is little indication that the COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate influence on divorce dynamics, although the filing rate was more depressed during lockdown periods.