Although there are no official local statistics indicating final numbers, Lebanon It ranked sixth in the divorce rates in Arab countries, according to the Data Pandas website, which specializes in divorce rates in the world for the year 2024.
In this context, a source at the Population and Development Center in Lebanon revealed to Sky News Arabia that “the natural population growth declined between 2018 and 2022, and there was a significant drop in the number of marriage transactions (-24.6 percent) and an increase in the number of divorce transactions to the equivalent of 31 percent of marriages,” noting that continuing in this manner could lead to the collapse of the population structure in the country.
Life’s difficulties
Speaking to Sky News Arabia, sociology expert Mounir Al-Hajj attributed the reasons for the decline in unemployment rates to: Marriage The increase in divorce rates is due to “circumstances that prevent young people from getting married and having children, for fear of the difficulties of daily and marital life, in light of the economic crisis that the country has been experiencing since the end of 2019.”
Al-Hajj pointed out that “the emerging economic and security crisis has created fear among some of the possibility of… childbirthand affected marriage rates, which decreased by 13.3 percent from 2016 to 2023, while rates increased by Divorce By 7.7 percent, in addition to immigration, which also affected population growth in Lebanon.
Al-Hajj explained that,Economic crisis It was enough to reduce population growth, after housing banks were providing services and facilities and giving housing loans to about 12 thousand applications, meaning there were 12 thousand families seeking to own a house or build a house, and these services ended due to the crisis.
He concluded: “This has delayed marriage projects, and we fear that Lebanon will become like China (which limits each family to one child).”
The judge of separation in the Sharia court said in Beirut Abdul Aziz Shafei, in a phone call with Sky News Arabia: “There are no accurate statistics in our courts, neither in Beirut nor in other courts, but we notice an increase in divorce cases, especially due to crises, whether economic or security-related.”
He added: “The difficulty of statistics is due to the diversity of cases, as there is a divorce registered in one place without a marriage registered, or divorce cases that occur in Beirut while the marriage contract is registered in another city.”
What else do the numbers say?
Researcher at the International Information Bulletin, Muhammad Shams al-Din, told Sky News Arabia, “In 2018, there were 7,995 divorces and 36,287 marriages.”
He said: “However, the number of marriages decreased in 2020 to 29,493, while the number of cases reached Divorce To 6793 cases.
Shams El-Din revealed that “during the year 2024, the number of divorce cases reached 8,541, while the number of marriages was 30,553, meaning that between 2018 and the beginning of 2024, marriage cases decreased by 15.8 percent.”
The researcher pointed out that “the financial and economic crisis and the current conditions in the country have had a significant impact, especially on the population growth, which has declined significantly.”
Danger to demographics
Shams El-Din continued: “From 2016 to 2023, about 468,000 people, most of whom are young people, and 30 percent of them are… People of Lebanon Now over 50 years old.”
He concluded: “If the situation remains this low, the population growth rate will rise.” middle age After 10 years to 40 percent and then to 50 percent, that is, half Lebanese people He will become elderly, and this situation is considered dangerous for the Lebanese demographics.”
