More women divorcees in India than men: Census report

There are more divorced and separated women in India than men, suggests the ‘Marital Status by Religious Community and Sex: Census 2011’ report released on Wednesday. All religions except Sikhism reported a ratio of three divorced or separated women to one divorced or separated man.

In total, says the report, 67.02% or 32.82 lakh of the 48.97 lakh people who have divorced or are living separately from their spouses are women. In all, 35.35 lakh people are separated and 13.62 lakh are divorced.

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In the separation from spouse category, there are 23.72 lakh married women, compared with 11.62 lakh men, while among divorcees, there are 9.09 lakh women and 4.52 lakh men.

According to the census, 57.08 crore Indians have never married, 57.95 crore are married and 5.55 crore are widowed. Religion-wise, out of the total Muslim population of 17.22 crore, 3.84 lakh people (0.22%) have separated and 2.69 lakh people (0.15%) are divorced.

In a comparison of all religions, Islam takes the top position in these stats.

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Among Hindus, there are 19.04 lakh separated married women, and 9.66 lakh separated married men – about 0.29% of the total Hindu population. And in case of divorcees, there are 6.44 lakh divorced women and 3.44 lakh divorced men.

All the number crunching aside, logically it would seem that the number of men and women divorcees would be the same, since for every divorced female, there would be a male. However, since the data suggests otherwise, a possible conclusion that could be drawn from it would be that more men remarry than women. This could a matter of personal choice, but more also the stigma attached to being a divorced woman could also be a factor. Something to think about.

Feature image credit: theinclusionsolution.me