New statistics
Fewer and fewer marriages in Germany – what is behind it
The number of marriages decreases. Every third adult is single today. What is behind the numbers.
Only half of the adults in Germany are married. This is the lowest value in 30 years. This is how the Federal Statistical Office reports it. The approximately 35 million married people are just as many single people (around 23 million), divorced (around 7 million) and widowed (around 5 million).
While the number of widowers and divorced people has changed little in the long term, the proportion of unmarried people has continuously increased from 24 to 33 percent since the early 1990s. The average age of the first marriage rose by about six years: women were last 33 years old at the first wedding, men a little over 35. Couples have never been older on the first visit to the registry office. Nevertheless, the number of new marriages has dropped to the second lowest level since 1950. At this long -term trend, the introduction of “marriage for everyone” in 2017 did not change anything: Around three percent of marriages today are same -sex.
Marriage is only something for half: what is behind it?
Psychological research assumes that nowadays – if at all – being married more out of conviction, far less because of the social norm. The willingness to separate has also increased compared to earlier decades. And: You separate less today because a relationship no longer works, but in the expectation that a new one could be better.
However, fewer and fewer people have been shared in recent years. One reason: divorces are bureaucratic, expensive and typically reduce the prosperity of the divorced, explain social economists. There are no current and reliable figures about how many spouses are married and remain aware of it, but in fact live “side by side”. Quite a few very quiet or very unspoken arrangements are likely to be. Because the information on the marital status “alive” has tax effects.
The Federal Statistical Office, however, states that today around seven million adults live as couples without a marriage certificate – the trend is rising. The Germans have not become much more unwilling to mate in the past 30 years. But apparently married to marriage.
Source: Stern
