Divorce in Turkey not on rise

The divorce rate in Turkey is at 0.14 percent, said State Minister Nimet Çubukçu, disclosing the research findings. "The leading factor in divorces is incompatibility and the leading causes of incompatibility is negligence, irresponsibility, jealousy, disagreements about children, economic problems and physical disharmony," Çubukçu said. In 2001, slightly more than 90,000 couples divorced while in 2002 this number exceeded 95,000.

In 2003 and 2004, the number fell to around 91,000. Çubukçu said these numbers were based on official divorce cases that had been finalized in the courts. Applications to courts had not been included in the data. Around 1,200 people who divorced after 2000, participated in the research in the provinces of Adana, Ankara, Balıkesir, Bursa, Erzurum, Gaziantep, Istanbul, İzmir, Kayseri, Malatya, Samsun and Trabzon. Out of those surveyed, 40 percent were high school graduates.

 Divorce among university graduates was less than among primary school graduates. Among those surveyed, 90 percent lived in urban areas and many had been married between two and five years before divorcing. Ninety percent made the decision to end their marriages on their own and stated their primary reason for getting married was because they had fallen in love. The majority of families of divorced women were against their marriage prior to the divorce, the research also disclosed.