Two hundred thousand new exes every year

There are more than four million married and unmarried couples in the Netherlands. Every year some hundred thousand couples break up: about a third get divorced, the remainder are cohabiting couples who break up. Most of these two hundred thousand new exes are in their late twenties.

Risk of relation break-up by age in 2000

Going it alone again

Generally speaking the younger the couple is - regardless of whether they are married or not - the more likely they are to break up. Of all people aged thirty cohabiting with a partner in 2000 some seven percent split up. For married people of the same age this was less than three percent.

Over half of the new singles live alone after breaking up. Some fifteen percent are living with a new partner within twelve months. Seven percent of ex-cohabiters go back to their parents after splitting up.

Household positions on 1-1-2001 after break-up in 2000

Nearly two-thirds move house

When a couple split up one of the two e-partners will have to find somewhere else to live. In twenty percent of break-ups both partners move house. This means that sixty percent of all new ex-cohabiters move after splitting up. When one partner moves out this is just as likely to be the man as the woman in married couples, for unmarried couples women more often move out than men.

Liesbeth Steenhof and Carel Harmsen