The percentage of civil weddings increased in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared to the same period of the previous year, as it went from 57.7% in 2006 to 61.8% in 2007, according to Eustat data. On the other hand, a greater percentage of civil weddings are held in the last quarter of the year than in the summer (42.6%), when nearly 4 out of every 10 weddings are held for the year.

In October, November and December, there were 1,891 wedding in the A.C. of the Basque Country, which was 5.7% up on the same quarter of 2006. By provinces, there were 914 weddings in Bizkaia, followed by 630 in Gipuzkoa and 224 in Álava. The number of weddings of people residing outside the Basque Country came to 51.,

1,773 men and 1,794 women who were resident of the A.C. of the Basque Country were married. This was the first marriage for 1,588 men, while 10 widowers and 175 divorcés remarried. The percentage of first marriages for women was similar to that of the men: the number of single brides came to 1,610 (89.7%), there were 11 widows and 173 divorcées.

With regard to the distribution of marriages according to the age of spouses, 79.6% of grooms were over 30 in the fourth quarter of 2007, while this percentage stood at 66.4% in the case of the brides. These proportions are higher than those for the same quarter of the year before, which were 77.2% and 63.3%, respectively.

In 2007, the general trend to marry later continued, as 75.4% of the grooms and 59.9% of the brides married at 30 or over. These percentages were higher than in 2006 (72.8% and 56.7%, respectively).

The provisional figures for 2007 show that the number of marriages of people resident in the A.C. of the Basque Country were down 2.5% on the previous year. On the other hand, the percentage of civil weddings was nearly 3 points higher than the figure for 2006, as they accounted for 52.5% of the total in 2007.

Graph 1: Monthly movement in marriages

Base 100 = average

Source: EUSTAT