Separations on the decline in Italy

Separations among Italian married couples appear to be on the decline after leaping 39.7% over the past ten years, according to a report by national statistics bureau Istat published Wednesday.
Based on data comparing 2006 to 1996, Istat found that separations in 2006 fell 2.3% over the previous year while divorces rose 5.3% for the same period.
The reason for this, Istat explained, was because of a steady decline in the number of couples marrying in Italy while, due to the three-year waiting period between separation and divorce, the divorces recorded in 2006 were the result of separations before 2004.
Divorces jumped 51.4% from 1996 to 2006 and there are now 3.3 divorces for every 1,000 married couples and 5.4 separations, Istat said.
The report also found that seven out of ten couples who separated had children and that in 58% of these cases the children were awarded to the mother and in 21.1% of cases to the father.