You asked
Please provide the following:
Population of England & Wales
Number of Marriages in 2017
Number of Divorces/Separations in 2017
Number Children affected in (3) above
We said
Thank you for your request.
The population statistics that you request for 2017 are available from our mid-year annual population estimates:
The marriage statistics we publish are derived from information recorded when marriages are registered as part of civil registration. The latest figures are for 2015; marriage statistics can only be published by us once the annual dataset is considered acceptably complete. More information on the timeliness of marriage statistics is available in the quality and methodology section of our latest marriages bulletin available at:
The latest divorce statistics for England and Wales for 2017 are available from our annual statistical bulletin:
We do not hold any data on the number of separations in England and Wales as this is not collected as part of the registration process.
Since 2014, it has not been mandatory for divorcing couples to provide details of children – a consequence of the Children and Families Act 2012. Following an assessment of data quality, statistics relating to children of divorcing couples were discontinued from 2015 onwards. Data on children have not been recorded on the divorce application since 2017:
Other special extracts and tabulations of marriage and divorce data for England and Wales are available (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreement of costs, where appropriate). You can contact the team directly at: vsob@ons.gov.uk