10 Countries With the Highest Divorce Rates

Bangalore: Divorce is considered one of the most traumatic experiences in a person’s life which leaves an emotional scar that lasts a lifetime. This, however, has not stopped people from breaking up. Here is a list of countries with the highest divorce rates:

10. South Korea

A couple of decades ago, Sunoo, one of South Korea’s leading matchmaking agencies had no divorced clients. Today, the country features among the top ten nations with highest divorce rates.

''South Korea is in a transition,'' said Lee Woong Jin, the agency's chief executive. ''It's a reality that divorce is rising and will probably continue to rise. At the same time, we are adhering to traditional values,'' as reported by The New York Times.

With people’s attitude towards divorce fast changing, South Korea is poised for a social transformation. There was a time when Confucian values of family and patriarchy governed the lives of people. Today, the society which has become greatly influenced by the West is more open. This has created a pop culture that has been breaking taboos and focusing more on self gratification. The divorce rate started increasing in 1997 and the reason can probably be attributed to the economic crash that happened around the same time.

9. Czech Republic

With a divorce rate of 3.11 percent, Czech Republic is the second highest in the EU, after Lithuania (which shares the 10^th spot with South Korea. According to a Eurostat report, two married couples per 1000 inhabitants divorced on average in the EU, while in the Czech Republic it was 3.1 divorces per 1000 inhabitants in 2005.