Press Release 11/20/2017
There were 2,346 marriages registered in the second quarter of 2017 in the Basque Country, 1.3% down on the previous year
The number of civil marriages continued to grow
In the second quarter of 2017 the figure for marriages in the Basque Country stood at 2,346, which was a drop of 1.3% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, according to Eustat data. Of the total number of marriages, 49 were between people of the same sex – 17 between men and 32 between women – and the remaining 2,297 were heterosexual marriages.
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.
During the spring months of 2017, the percentage of civil weddings was 83.6%, 2.9 points higher than in the same quarter of 2016 but lower than that observed in the first quarter of 2017, when it stood at 90.9%. This percentage refers only to heterosexual marriages, to which a further 2.1 points should be added for marriages between people of the same sex, all of which were civil.
Of the 2,346 marriages in the second quarter of 2017, 2,243 men and women resident in the Basque Country married. For 1,927 spouses (85.9%) this was their first marriage, whilst 20 widowers and 296 divorcees remarried. The percentage of first weddings for women was similar to that for men: the number of single women who married stood at 1,921 (85.6%), 8 widows and 314 divorcees.
The age of those getting married continued to rise
With respect to the distribution according to the age of the couple, 91.9% of husbands and 83.2% of wives were older than 30. These proportions were slightly greater than those for the same period of 2016 (90.9% and 83.0%, respectively), which maintains, for another quarter, the rising trend in the age of the population on getting married.
In terms of provinces, Álava, with 311 weddings, saw a decrease of 3.7% compared to the previous year; Gipuzkoa, with 755 weddings, was down by 3.9%, whereas Bizkaia, by contrast, rose by 2.6%, with 1,178 weddings taking place. On the other hand, 102 couples fixed their residency outside the Basque Country.
In the months of April, May and June 2017, 6.8% of recently married men and 10.6% of recently married women were foreign nationals. With regards to the same quarter of the previous year, the percentage of men increased by 0.2 points and women 0.4 points.
For further information:
Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Instituto Vasco de Estadística
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.eus Tlf: 945 01 75 62