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Press Release 23/05/2016

MARRIAGE STATISTICS, IV/2015

There were 1,550 marriages registered in the fourth quarter of 2015, 8% up on the previous year

In 2015 overall, the number of marriages for individuals resident in the Basque Country remained steady

In the months of October, November and December 1,550 marriages were registered in the Basque Country, which was a rise of 8% compared to the same quarter in 2014, according to Eustat data. By province, in Bizkaia there were 759 weddings, in Gipuzkoa, 526 and in Álava, 228. Of the couples who fixed their residency outside the Basque Country, the number of weddings stood at 37.

In the fourth quarter of 2015 the number of civil marriages in the Basque Country barely changed with regards to the same period of the previous year, going from 82.9% in 2014 to 83% in 2015. There are usually a higher proportion of civil marriages during these months of the year than in the summer, when canonical marriages stood at 28.9%.

1,500 men and 1,508 women resident in the Basque Country entered into marriage. For 1,299 spouses (86.6%) this was their first marriage, whilst 17 widowers and 184 divorcees remarried. The percentage of women entering into marriage for the first time was similar to that of men, and was 86.3% of the total, with a similar figure: 1,301; 9 widows and 198 divorcees also remarried.

The percentage of married men and women of foreign nationality fell

In the 4th quarter of 2015, 9.1% of new husbands and 14% of new wives were foreign nationals. The percentage of foreign nationals entering into marriage was lower than in the same quarter of the previous year (10% men and 14.7% women, in the fourth quarter of 2014).

Furthermore, 36 marriages between individuals of the same sex took place, a figure similar to the 37 registered the previous year.

Regarding the distribution of married couples according to the age of the spouses, in the fourth quarter of 2015, 91.2% of recently married men were over 30 years of age, whereas amongst recently married women this percentage stood at 83.3%. These figures are above those for the same period of the previous year: 88.3% for men and 80.9% for women.

In 2015 as a whole we still see the same tendency to delay entering into marriage, with 89.4% of husbands and 80.2% of wives doing so at the age of 30 or over, higher percentages than those in 2014 (87.6% and 76.4%, respectively).

In the provisional data for 2015, the number of marriages for individuals resident in the Basque Country dropped by 0.2% with regards to the previous year, while the proportion of civil marriages rose by 2.3 percentage points compared to 2014, reaching 79.8% of the total.