“Grey divorce” on the rise among the Dutch over-60s

The number of couples divorcing in the Netherlands is still falling, but a growing share of those who do split are over 60 – a trend sometimes called “grey divorce”.

Some 24,555 marriages ended in divorce in 2025, according to national statistics office CBS, down from 30,729 in 2018. The decline has been going for more than a decade. Fewer people are marrying in the first place, and those who do tend to stay together longer.

Older couples are the exception. Divorces among the under-60s have dropped since 2014, but among people over 60 they have gone up, and their share of all divorces has climbed from around 8% a decade ago to about 13% last year.

Hundreds of couples now divorce after 40 years or more together, including some who separate after a 50-year anniversary, which was almost unheard of at the turn of the century.

Relationship therapists link the shift to changing attitudes, with divorce more widely accepted than it was a generation ago, and to the moment when children leave home or retirement approaches and long-married partners find they have little left in common.

There is a knock-on effect on housing. Many older people who split up choose to live apart together rather than move in with a new partner, keeping two homes between them and freeing up fewer properties on an already tight market.