- Methods and Projects
- Standards and Classifications
Standardised Methodological Report
Annulments, Separations and Divorces
- 1Contact
- 1.1Contact organisation
National Statistics Institute of Spain
- 1.5Contact mail address
Avenida de Manoteras 50-52 - 28050 Madrid
- 1.1Contact organisation
- 2Metadata update
- 2.1Metadata last certified
08/07/2024
- 2.2Metadata last posted
11/07/2024
- 2.3Metadata last update
08/07/2024
- 2.1Metadata last certified
- 3Statistical presentation
- 3.1Data description
The Statistics on annulments, separations and divorces provides annual data on the judgments, decrees and notarial deeds in accordance with the regulatory legislation on the matter. Both aspects of these rulings as of the spouses affected characteristics are investigated, providing information about the applicant, the existence of prior legal separation, the fault type, who pays, where appropriate, the alimony and child support, who take charge of the custody of minor children, the date of marriage, the marital status at marriage, number of children under age or dependent older age, and date of birth, gender and nationality.
- 3.2Classification system
- Comunidades y Ciudades Autónomas
01 Andalucía
02 Aragón
03 Asturias, Principado de
04 Balears, Illes
05 Canarias
06 Cantabria
07 Castilla y León
08 Castilla - La Mancha
09 Cataluña
10 Comunitat Valenciana
11 Extremadura
12 Galicia
13 Madrid, Comunidad de
14 Murcia, Región de
15 Navarra, Comunidad Foral de
16 País Vasco
17 Rioja, La
18 Ceuta
19 Melilla
- Comunidades y Ciudades Autónomas
- 3.3Sector coverage
The statistics cover all courts and notary's offices that resolve disputes on annulments, separations and divorces in the Spanish territory.
- 3.4Statistical concepts and definitions
- Age
Age in years refers to the number of birthdays reached by the reference date, in other words, the age last birthday.
- Citizenship
Citizenship is defined as the particular legal bond between an individual and his/her State,, acquired by birth or naturalisation, whether by declaration, option, marriage or other means according to the national legislation.
- Compensatory maintenance
The entitlement of one spouse when the separation or divorce causes him or her an economic imbalance in relation to the position of the other.
- Divorce
Dissolution of the of the marital relationship implying the loss of obligations and rights generated between the spouses at the time of entering into marriage.
- Judgment
The judgment is a resolution passed by a judge or a court which ultimately decides the lawsuit or cause in any instance or appeal, or when, in accordance with procedural law, they must take this form.
In civil law the judgment declares or recognises the rights of one of the parties, or states who is right, forcing the other to accept and comply with it. In criminal law, judgment acquits or sentences the accused, passing the corresponding sentences. - Maintenance
Amount that, due to its conventional, testate, legal or judicial provision, is to pass from one person to another, or to his or her legal representative, in order for him or her to feed him- or herself and fulfil other essential means of existence.
- Marriage annulment
Judicial ruling that declares a marriage null and void. Marriages held without marital consent, those held not in the presence of a Judge, Mayor or civil servant or civil servant before whom it must be held, or without witnesses, those held due to mistaken identity of the spouse, and those held through coercion or fear are null and void.
- Separation
Judicial ruling that leads to suspension of living together for cases and ends the possibility of linking good of the other spouse in exercising economic authority.
- Sex
Sex refers to the biological sex of the person. According to the WHO, "sex" refers to biological and physiological features defining to men and women, whereas "gender" refers to the roles, behaviour, activities and attributes constructed socially that a specific culture regards as appropriate for men and women. In accordance with this description, the WHO regards "man" and "woman" as sex categories, whereas "male" and "female" are gender categories.
- Age
- 3.5Statistical unit
The statistical units are the judgments, decrees or notarial deeds about annulments, separations and divorces.
- 3.6Statistical population
The statistical population consists of the set of judgements, decrees or notarial deeds relating to the processes of annulments, separations and divorces issued by the competent courts in the matter (Courts of First Instance, Courts of First Instance and Magistrates' Courts and Violence against Women Courts), and by the notary's offices.
- 3.7Reference area
The statistics cover the whole of the national territory.
National, autonomous and provincial information is provided.
- 3.8Time coverage
These statistics are carried out every year.
Results are available on the website of INE since 1998.
- 3.9Base period
There is not a proper base period, as it is a long-term survey. The first publication year was 1998
- 3.1Data description
- 4Unit of measure
- 4.1Unit of measure
Number of resolutions,decrees, and notarial deeds.
- 4.1Unit of measure
- 5Reference period
- 5.1Reference period
The reference period is the calendar year.
Data referred to the period: Anual A: 2023
- 5.1Reference period
- 6Institutional mandate
- 6.1Legal acts and other agreements
The compilation and dissemination of the data are governed by the Statistical Law No. 12/1989 "Public Statistical Function" of May 9, 1989, and Law No. 4/1990 of June 29 on “National Budget of State for the year 1990" amended by Law No. 13/1996 "Fiscal, administrative and social measures" of December 30, 1996, makes compulsory all statistics included in the National Statistics Plan. The National Statistical Plan 2009-2012 was approved by the Royal Decree 1663/2008. It contains the statistics that must be developed in the four year period by the State General Administration's services or any other entity dependent on it. All statistics included in the National Statistics Plan are statistics for state purposes and are obligatory. The National Statistics Plan 2021-2024, approved by Royal Decree 1110/2020, of 15 December, is the Plan currently implemented. This statistical operation has governmental purposes, and it is included in the National Statistics Plan 2021-2024. (Statistics of the State Administration).
This statistical operation is carried out by the National Statistics Institute as established in the agreement signed by the INE and the General Council of the Judiciary Branch on 14th February 1995, and later addendums.
- 6.2Data sharing
The exchanges of information needed to elaborate statistics between the INE and the rest of the State statistical offices (Ministerial Departments, independent bodies and administrative bodies depending on the State General Administration), or between these offices and the Autonomic statistical offices, are regulated in the LFEP (Law of the Public Statistic Function). This law also regulates the mechanisms of statistical coordination, and concludes cooperation agreements between the different offices when necessary.
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- 6.1Legal acts and other agreements
- 7Confidentiality
- 7.1Confidentiality - policy
The Statistical Law No. 12/1989 specifies that the INE cannot publish, or make otherwise available, individual data or statistics that would enable the identification of data for any individual person or entity. Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society
- 7.2Confidentiality - data treatment
INE provides information on the protection of confidentiality at all stages of the statistical process: INE questionnaires for the operations in the national statistical plan include a legal clause protecting data under statistical confidentiality. Notices prior to data collection announcing a statistical operation notify respondents that data are subject to statistical confidentiality at all stages. For data processing, INE employees have available the INE data protection handbook, which specifies the steps that should be taken at each stage of processing to ensure reporting units' individual data are protected. The microdata files provided to users are anonymised.
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- 7.1Confidentiality - policy
- 8Release policy
- 8.1Release calendar
The advance release calendar that shows the precise release dates for the coming year is disseminated in the last quarter of each year.
- 8.2Release calendar access
The calendar is disseminated on the INEs Internet website (Publications Calendar)
- 8.3User access
The data are released simultaneously according to the advance release calendar to all interested parties by issuing the press release. At the same time, the data are posted on the INE's Internet website (www.ine.es/en) almost immediately after the press release is issued. Also some predefined tailor-made requests are sent to registered users. Some users could receive partial information under embargo as it is publicly described in the European Statistics Code of Practice
- 8.1Release calendar
- 9Frequency of dissemination
- 9.1Frequency of dissemination
The results of the Statistics on annulments, separations and divorces are disseminated annually.
- 9.1Frequency of dissemination
- 10Accessibility and clarity
- 10.1News release
The results of the statistical operations are normally disseminated by using press releases that can be accessed via both the corresponding menu and the Press Releases Section in the web
- 10.2Publications
All the information related to the annulments, separations and divorces Statistics is published in the INE website:
- 10.3On-line database
INEbase is the system the INE uses to store statistical information on the Internet. It contains all the information the INE produces in electronic formats. The primary organisation of the information follows the theme-based classification of the Inventory of Statistical Operations of the State General Administration . The basic unit of INEbase is the statistical operation, defined as the set of activities that lead to obtaining statistical results on a determined sector or subject based on the individually collected data. Also included in the scope of this definition are synthesis preparation.
The results are available at the INE website (Society -> Security and Justice).
Number of accesses AC1=117181
Number of accesses AC2=838
- 10.4Micro-data access
A lot of statistical operations disseminate public domain anonymized files, available free of charge for downloading in the INE website Microdata Section
Access to microdata would be subject to the guarantees of confidentiality and statistical legislation on this matter.
- 10.5Other
There is the possibility of requesting customised information (protecting always statistical secrecy) to the INE user assistance service. For further information check the following link:
- 10.6Documentation on methodology
The methodology is available on the INE website:
Likewise, this standardised methodological report constitutes a detailed source of information on several of the methodological aspects of the statistics.
Metadata completeness - rate AC3= 100% - 10.7Quality documentation
Sections 10.6 to 17 of this standardized methodological report contain the different quality aspects associated with these statistics. It is the user-oriented quality report for this statistic.
- 10.1News release
- 11Quality management
- 11.1Quality assurance
Quality assurance framework for the INE statistics is based on the ESSCoP, the European Statistics Code of Practice made by EUROSTAT. The ESSCoP is made up of 16 principles, gathered in three areas: Institutional Environment, Processes and Products. Each principle is associated with some indicators which make possible to measure it. In order to evaluate quality, EUROSTAT provides different tools: the indicators mentioned above, Self-assessment based on the DESAP model, peer review, user satisfaction surveys and other proceedings for evaluation.
In order to guarantee the reliability of the statistics, the possible coverage and content errors that could affect the quality of the information are detected and analysed during the annual processing of the statistics.
The legal grounds for these statistics constitutes the main element or tool for the design of their quality framework. Therefore, it is compulsory for courts and notary's offices to deliver to the INE the information they are requested.
As regards collected information, there are internal automatic controls of the computer application designed for collecting information, which contribute to guaranteeing the quality of its content. Furthermore, there are year-on-year controls and comparisons of the collected information with the purpose of assessing its coverage and quality and, if necessary, improving the available information. We also carry out comparative studies with external information sources, with the aim of detecting potential coverage lacks or data failures.
Amendments have been made in the methods of purification and automatic imputation in order to improve the quality of the results offered.
- 11.2Quality assessment
The wealth of statistical information provides an approach to socio-demographic and social interest to the study of divorces, so that the various statistical processes are geared to ensure the quality of the results offered and marginal frequency distributions.
As a strong point of statistics include the wealth of information on socio-demographic variables that are derived from the Statistics on annulments, separations and divorces.
Among the weak points in order to improve future it should be noted the decrease in the non-response rate.
- 11.1Quality assurance
- 12Relevance
- 12.1User needs
The main users of these statistics are :
-Ministries and other public bodies. (Ministry of Justice and General Council of the Judiciary Branch)
-Researchers and Universities (Faculties and Departments of Law and Social Sciences).
-Territorial administrations (Autonomous Communities, councils...)
Companies and non-profit institutions (especially those linked with social issues or sociological analysis of suggestibility).
- Individuals
- 12.2User satisfaction
The INE has carried out general user satisfaction surveys in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019 and it plans to continue doing so every three years. The purpose of these surveys is to find out what users think about the quality of the information of the INE statistics and the extent to which their needs of information are covered. In addition, additional surveys are carried out in order to acknowledge better other fields such as dissemination of the information, quality of some publications...
On the INE website, in its section Methods and Projects / Quality and Code of Practice / INE quality management / User surveys are available surveys conducted to date.(Click next link)
User Satisfaction Surveys can be consulted on the website of INE in the category of: Methods and Projects -> Quality in the INE and Code of Practice -> INE Quality Management -> User surveys , where you can see the valuation of the sector "Society: Education, Culture, Health, Justice " which is framed in this statistical operation, which can orient to the opinion of users on it.
When preparing the statistics exploitation plan, we have taken into account the specific needs of users, and therefore we have included in the research those variables considered to be relevant for this type of legal proceedings. The new proposals suggested by users will be considered regarding future methodological changes.
- 12.3Completeness
Even if no european regulations, the Annulments, Separations and Divorces Statistics supply requested information in the National Statistical Plan.
herefore, Data completeness - rate R1= 100%
- 12.1User needs
- 13Accuracy and reliability
- 13.1Overall accuracy
These statistics are exhaustive, therefore there are no sampling errors. With respect to non-sampling errors, the necessary studies and controls are carried out in order to assess them and restrict their magnitude.
- 13.2Sampling error
This concept is not applicable for it is an exhaustive research.
Sampling error - indicators A1= Not applicable.
- 13.3Non-sampling error
During information processing, non-sampling errors (non response, errors of completion, etc.) are detected and restricted where possible. In any case, the fact that it is compulsory for Courts to notify the INE the information regarding annulments, separations and divorces implies an additional guarantee of the authenticity and integrity of the data provided. The electronic questionnaire web allows a significant reduction of errors in recording and enables the consistency of the information (consistency of totals and disaggregated).
Over coverage rate A2= 0.18%
Common units proportion A3= not applicable
Unit non response rate A4= 33.43%
Item non response rate A5= 1.73%
Imputation rate A7= 1.73%
- 13.1Overall accuracy
- 14Timeliness and punctuality
- 14.1Timeliness
The results of the statistics are published before seven months after the reference period of the information has finalised.
Time lag - first results TP1= Not applicable
Time lag - final results TP2= 7m - 14.2Punctuality
The dissemination of the results is carried out in accordance with the structural statistics availability calendar that the INE compiles and publishes each year.
Punctuality - delivery and publication TP3= The calendar is fulfilled
- 14.1Timeliness
- 15Coherence and Comparability
- 15.1Comparability - geographical
The availability of a methodology, a source of information and a common processing in the entire geographical scope, guarantees comparability of results between the different provinces and Autonomous Communities.
Comparability with other countries of the European Union, not being subject to this statistical Community regulation is conditional on the legislation and statistics that take place in each country.
- 15.2Comparability - over time
A temporary comparability of information for the period 1998-2012 can be made, being the number of elements comparable of this time series 15.
However, the data provided since 2013 (hereinafter referred to absolute values of each type of judgment) are not directly comparable with those obtained in the previous series because of the availability of new auxiliary sources of information on the judiciary, they have improved processes and elevation estimation of the results of this statistic, producing in 2013 a break in the series.
Length of comparable time series CC2= 11
- 15.3Coherence - cross domain
There is a statistic of the General Council of the Judiciary Branch (GCJB) measuring the activity of the competent courts in the matter, as the number of cases dealt with nullity, separation and divorce. The Statistics on annulments, separations and divorces by the INE measures that same activity in terms of final judgments and decrees, the end of the trial, when the data GCJB measured at baseline, when demand arises. Furthermore, information about notarial deeds is also obteined from Civil Registry.
- 15.4Coherence - internal
The internal coherence of the statistics is a consequence of the application of a set of methodological criteria and a detailed analysis of the possible inconsistencies existing among its different variables.
- 15.1Comparability - geographical
- 16Cost and burden
- 16.1Cost and burden
The estimation of the budgetary credit necessary to finance these statistics, as set out in the 2024 Annual Programme, comes to a total of 71.72 thousand euros.
The burden on respondents is non-existent, since these statistics are obtained from the information provided by administrative sources.
- 16.1Cost and burden
- 17Data revision
- 17.1Data revision - policy
The INE of Spain has a policy which regulates the basic aspects of statistical data revision, seeking to ensure process transparency and product quality. This policy is laid out in the document approved by the INE board of directors on 13 March of 2015, which is available on the INE website, in the section "Methods and projects/Quality and Code of Practice/INE’s Quality management/INE’s Revision policy" (link).
This general policy sets the criteria that the different type of revisions should follow: routine revision- it is the case of statistics whose production process includes regular revisions-; more extensive revision- when methodological or basic reference source changes take place-; and exceptional revision- for instance, when an error appears in a published statistic-.
The data provided are final.
- 17.2Data revision - practice
Not applicable data review in practice, since there is no progress nor interim results.
Average revision rate A6-MAR= Not applicable
Average revision rate A6-RMAR= Not applicable
- 17.1Data revision - policy
- 18Statistical processing
- 18.1Source data
The source data for this statistic is derived from the collection by questionnaire web of information on sentences Annulments, separations and divorces provided by the competent courts themselves in the field, and by the notary's offices.
- 18.2Frequency of data collection
Data is obtained annually.
- 18.3Data collection
Collecting statistics corresponding to this bulletin is performed continuously throughout the year by the corresponding web forms.
The entire collection process is implemented within the Neutral Point platform integrated in the web space of the General Council of the Judiciary Branch. This collection system to manage information in a more efficient data requests to the various courts taking advantage of new information and telecommunications technologies made available to users on the website of the GCJB.
The online electronic questionnaire includes automatic filtering controls in order to avoid potential inconsistencies.
Furthermore, information is also obteined from General Council of the Notaries.
- 18.4Data validation
During the process of editing and debugging information completeness and consistency of the contents of the various registers recorded under study, the first indicators obtained and charges on national, regional and provincial coverage and the first tab of the main variables are generated .
The fundamental part of the process of purification of information and treatment of invalid values and inconsistencies are carried out by ADI (Automatic Detection and Imputation), a generalized editing and imputation system developed by the INE and widely applicable in different surveys over time.
Once the editing phase is carried out the calculation of the adjustment factors and the results are tabulated.
- 18.5Data compilation
The last stage before the dissemination of information is oriented to analyze the aggregate and verify the consistency of the information provided information.
This statistics is disseminated annually.
- 18.6Adjustment
No adjustment is made.
- 18.1Source data
- 19Comment
- 19.1Comment
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- 19.1Comment