The crisis of the family institution in Ukraine: what awaits society when there are more divorces and fewer marriages

Since 2022, Ukraine has been living in conditions where life can change in an instant. War affects not only the economy or politics, but also interferes with what seems to be the most intimate thing – relationships between people. As a result, fewer and fewer marriages are registered in Ukraine every year, and the number of divorces is increasing. Under the sound of sirens, among evacuation suitcases and “I’m safe” messages, marriages are made and broken up with a new speed. Someone gets married, as if catching up on lost time, as if every day could be the last chance to say “yes”. And someone divorces, because the war exposes cracks that could not be noticed in peacetime. Statistics change as rapidly as evacuation routes, but behind each number is a choice made under extraordinary circumstances.

Marriages and divorces: what the statistics say

For data According to the Ministry of Justice, 150,210 new marriages were concluded in Ukraine in 2024, which is 19% less than in 2023 and 30% less than before the start of the full-scale war. At the same time, in 2024, an average of 12,500 couples will get married every month, which is the lowest rate in the last 10 years. However, for data Opendatabot, even in the second year of full-scale war, marriages have decreased. In the first half of 2023, the number of registered marriages decreased by 17% compared to 2022. During this period, 86,028 marriages were registered in Ukraine, while in 2022 – 103,903.

At the same time, the popularity of marriage contracts is growing in our country. In 2024, more than 2,700 such agreements were concluded, which is 7% more than in 2023. At the same time, this number is still inferior to pre-war indicators, when in 2021 their number reached a record 4,099. About informs The opendatabase.

If in 2023 one marriage contract accounted for 72 marriages, then in 2024 this indicator decreased to 54, which indicates an increased interest in legal regulation of property relations between spouses.

The main reason for concluding marriage contracts is uncertainty about the stability of the relationship with the partner and the desire to determine the property status of the spouses in advance. This is especially relevant for couples where one of the partners is a foreigner. For such marriages, the contract has become a standard practice, which avoids disputes in the future. In addition, Ukrainians increasingly use this opportunity as a way to protect their financial assets.

In turn, in 2024, a rapid increase in the number of divorces was observed, amounting to 42.2%. So, according to official data, the number of registered divorces reached 34.29 thousand, which is 10.18 thousand more. more than in 2023. At the same time, the number of court-ordered divorces increased by 2.3% to 1.31 thousand. cases

Interestingly, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, there was a sharp increase in the number of marriages. In the first year of the war, a real wedding boom took place – the number of marriages increased by 4% and became a record for two years. At that time, the queues at civil registration offices were as typical as the queues for humanitarian aid. People got married quickly, without celebrations and festive banquets, sometimes just in bomb shelters or in hospitals. Not because there was not enough time to plan, but because there was a lack of confidence that tomorrow would even come.

This phenomenon can be compared to the psychological need to find a point of support in chaos. When the world is falling apart, you want to have someone next to you who will be your “quiet haven”. For many, marriage has become a symbol of hope, a gesture of defiance against war, because if you can create a family even in such conditions, then life goes on.

It is obvious that the war became a kind of test of the strength of relations. As it turned out, for some families, the realities of wartime acted as a catalyst for divorce. Distance, stress, injuries, long stays in different countries or at the front exacerbated conflicts that could have been ignored in peacetime. Men are at the front, women are abroad or in forced isolation at home. Distance exacerbates conflicts, especially if they existed before the war. In addition, many women, once abroad, began to look at family roles, equality and responsibilities in relationships differently. If earlier they suffered dissatisfaction due to economic dependence, now, having gained financial independence, they are in no hurry to return to the old realities.

Another factor is psychological changes. War changes people. Someone becomes tougher, someone can’t handle the pressure, someone experiences PTSD. Families that were built on old models of behavior cannot always adapt to new realities.

Statistics indicate an interesting dynamic: at the beginning of the war, the number of divorces was much lower than now. But this is not a sign that families have become stronger. It’s just that the divorce courts often worked with restrictions, and many people postponed the decision “for later” when it was safer. But when the situation relatively stabilized, a wave of delayed divorces covered the country.

The economic situation only complicates the family crisis. The average salary fell to the level of 2018, and almost 70% of Ukrainians are forced to work in the shadow sector without financial guarantees. And this trend is only getting worse. Demographers predict that due to war, migration and economic difficulties, up to half of Ukrainian families may break up in the next five years. This, in turn, will cause even more serious consequences:

• falling birth rate;
• outflow of youth abroad;
• acceleration of the demographic crisis.

Geography of love and separation

Interestingly, regional differences also play a role. We have the following leaders by number of marriages:

• Kyiv — 9,392 marriages;
• Dnipropetrovsk region — 7,076 marriages;
• Odeshchyna — 4,896 marriages.

Opendatabot’s top for divorces includes the following areas:

• Kyiv region – 2,118 divorces;
• Dnipropetrovsk region – 1,404 divorces;
• Kharkiv Oblast – 1,148 divorces.

In the frontline regions, marriages were concluded even more actively than in relatively calm regions. This is partly due to the fact that military personnel often marry before going to the front. The legal status of a spouse facilitates access to social security in the event of injury or death.

On the other hand, divorces are recorded more often in the western regions and among Ukrainians who have found themselves abroad. Emigration and adaptation to a new environment create additional challenges for couples who are not always ready for such stress.

The war changed not only the number of marriages and divorces, but also the very idea of ​​relationships. Many formalities have disappeared. People no longer wait for the perfect moment, because they understand that there may never be a perfect time. At the same time, the requirements for the quality of relationships have become higher: when there is so much pain around, people do not want to put up with emotional emptiness even in their own home. Marriage used to be traditionally seen as a long-term decision, but in a country where the future depends on news reports, planning a life together has become a luxury. Today, young people are increasingly postponing weddings “until better times”, because they do not know what will happen tomorrow. Marriage means responsibility, and when even one’s own survival is at stake, the extra commitment seems like an unnecessary risk.

Historical experience of rebuilding relations in the post-war years

The world was already experiencing a similar trend with human relations in the post-war period. Immediately after the Second World War, there was a real marriage boom in Europe and the USA. People got married, trying to prove to themselves and the world that life continues after all that has been experienced. Soldiers were in a hurry to make an offer while still in the trenches or immediately after demobilization. No one wanted to wait, because too much time had already been lost, too many friends were left lying in a foreign land.

These marriages were often spontaneous, based on strong emotions – love, gratitude for survival, or simply the fear of being alone. Add to this the phenomenon of so-called “military brides” – women who married foreign soldiers and moved to other countries, leaving behind not only their relatives, but also their entire previous life.

However, this romantic wave was quickly followed by a wave of divorces. Relationships built on the adrenaline of wartime often did not survive the everyday life of peace. People who had not seen each other for years became strangers, changing under the pressure of war, losses and injuries.

This trend was especially evident in the USA and Great Britain, where the number of divorces in the post-war years reached record levels. In France and Germany, the situation was even more complicated: there social stigmatization was added to personal dramas. For example, women who had relations with occupying soldiers were called traitors and subjected to public humiliation.

The war destroyed not only houses. She rapidly changed the traditional roles in the family. While men fought, women worked in factories, managed enterprises, and learned new professions. They felt the taste of independence, and many of them did not want to return to the role of “housekeeper of the hearth”. This created conflicts in families, where men expected everything to return to its place, as it was before the war.

In the USSR, the situation had its own peculiarities. After the war, millions of men did not return from the front, which led to a demographic crisis in relations. Women often found themselves in a situation where there was no choice at all. The state actively promoted the idea of ​​a strong Soviet family, but in practice people built relationships as best they could: some out of love, some out of calculation, some out of loneliness.

Rather, postwar marriages and divorces embody stories of people trying to find themselves in a world that was no longer familiar to them. These are stories about families that stuck to habit, and about those that were born out of a desperate need to start over.

It is clear that the downward trend in the number of marriages and the increase in divorces will continue. After a war, there may be a short-term surge in marriages, as was the case after World War II, when people tried to reconnect and return to normal life. But the general dynamics are unlikely to change. More and more Ukrainians will perceive marriage not as an obligatory step, but as a conscious choice.

Hence, marriage is no longer a social obligation, and divorce is no longer a tragedy. Ukrainians began to treat the family more pragmatically: instead of formalities, they are looking for real support. Nowadays, relationships are no longer based on the convenient phrase “that’s how it’s accepted”. They either withstand the pressure of circumstances, becoming a real shelter, or they break, exposing what has long been in need of change. In addition to the war, one of the reasons for divorce and reluctance to start a family is the lack of family values ​​being instilled in young people, which leads to a lack of understanding of responsibility and the importance of partnerships.

An increase in the number of divorces and a decrease in the number of marriages in Ukraine leads to the destruction of the family institution, a decrease in the birth rate and an increase in the demographic crisis, which in the long term can negatively affect the social stability and economic development of the country.