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Press Release 20/11/2014

MARRIAGE STATISTCS (EMAT) OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY II/2014

There were 2,114 marriages registered in the second quarter of 2014 in the Basque Country, 6.4% down on the previous year

The proportion of civil marriages stood at 77.7%, an increase of 3.1 percentage points over the previous year (74.6%)

In the second quarter of 2014 the figure for marriages in the Basque Country stood at 2,114, which was a drop of 6.4% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, according to Eustat data. In terms of provinces, Bizkaia, with 1,033 weddings, saw a decrease of 7.4%; Gipuzkoa, with 715 weddings, was down by 8.6%, whereas Álava, by contrast, rose by 0.3%, the result of 314 weddings taking place. On the other hand, 52 couples fixed their residency outside the Basque Country.

During the spring months of 2014, 77.7% of weddings were civil, a percentage 3.1 points higher than that given for the same quarter of 2013. In turn, this proportion was lower than that registered in the first quarter of 2014, when it stood at 92.6%. 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 2,114 marriages in the second quarter of 2014, 2,043 men and 2,071 women resident in the Basque Country married. For 1,819 spouses (89%) this was their first marriage, whilst 7 widowers and 217 divorcees remarried. The percentage of first weddings for women was similar to that for men: the number of single women who married stood at 1,844 (89%), 8 widows and 219 divorcees.

The age of those getting married continued to rise

With respect to the distribution of marriages according to the age of the couple, 88.8% of husbands and 76.5% of wives were older than 30. These proportions were greater than those for the same period of 2013 (87.1% and 75.7%, respectively), which maintains, for another quarter, the rise in the age of the population on getting married.

In the months of April, May and June 2014, 5.5% of recently married men and 8% of recently married women were foreign nationals. With regards to the same quarter of the previous year, the percentage rose by one percent among men, and fell by zero point three percent among women.

Furthermore, 33 marriages between individuals of the same sex were celebrated, a figure that exceeds the 26 registered the previous year.

Source: Eustat. Marriage statistics in the Basque Country