Press Release 07/12/2012
There were 2,282 marriages registered in the second quarter of 2012, 6.6% down on the previous year
70.7% of the marriages that took place in April, May and June 2012 were civil
In the second quarter of 2012 the figure for marriages in the Basque Country stood at 2,282, which was a drop of 6.6% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, according to Eustat data. In terms of provinces, Bizkaia, with 1208 weddings, saw a decrease of 2.4%, Gipuzkoa, with 781 weddings, was down by 8.7% and Álava fell by 17.9%, the result of just 243 weddings taking place. On the other hand, 50 couples fixed their residency outside the Basque Country.
During the spring months of 2012, 70.7% of weddings were civil, a percentage 3.5 points higher than that given for the same quarter of 2011. In turn this proportion was lower than that obtained in the first quarter of 2012, in which 90.3% of weddings were civil. As is common in the second quarter the number of unions rose considerably, above all in the months of May and June, as opposed to what happens in the winter months, characterised by the low number of weddings.
Of the 2,282 marriages in the second quarter of 2012, 2,204 men and 2,234 women resident in the Basque Country married. For 1,974 husbands (89.6%) this was their first marriage, whilst 20 widowers and 210 divorcees remarried. The percentage of first weddings for women was practically identical to that for men: the number of single women who married stood at 2,015 (90.2%), widows 13 and divorcees 206.
The age of those getting married continued to rise
With respect to the distribution of marriages according to the age of the couple, 85.1% of husbands and 72.3% of wives were older than 30. These proportions were greater than those for the same period of 2011 (84.1% and 70.9%, respectively), which maintains, for another quarter, the trend of a rise in the age of the population on getting married.
In the months of April, May and June 2012, 6.9% of recently married men and 7.5% of recently married women were foreign nationals. In both cases the percentages were lower than those for the same quarter of the previous year (7.1% y 9.6%, respectively). This drop was produced more noticeably in the case of women with a decrease of 2.1 percentage points, against 0.2 for men.
Furthermore, 42 marriages between individuals of the same sex were celebrated, a figure that exceeds the 36 registered the previous year.
For further information:
Euskal Estatistika-Erakundea / Instituto Vasco de Estadística
C/ Donostia-San Sebastian, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Tel:+34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-maileustat@eustat.es
Contact: Martín González Hernández
Tel:+34-945-01 75 49 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01
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