Brussels: Europe and the Arabs

Today, the Belgian Statistics Office published figures on marriages, divorces and legal cohabitation. In 2021, according to the bureau, the partnership numbers have recovered somewhat, without reaching pre-COVID-19 levels.

And 40,836 marriages took place in 2021, a staggering 25% increase compared to 2020. However, there are still far fewer marriages in 2021 than in 2019.

The divorce rate increased only slightly from 2020 and is slightly lower than in 2019, which is in line with the downward trend of the past 10 years.

In 2021, 37,768 couples cohabited legally. This is a slight increase of 4% from 2020, but still well below the 2019 level. Relatively speaking, there were more couples who ended legal cohabitation (+12%), but here too this remains well below the 2019 level. In 2021, 41,885 people lost their spouses and became widowed or widowed and the number of widows decreased by 7.3% compared to the COVID-19 period in 2020.