Men and women in Japan are getting married increasingly later than previous generations. In 2023, the average age of women who marry for the first time was about 29.7 years, while men were on average 31.1 years old when they first got married. Social integration of women The rising age at first marriage was partly explained by a common theory that holds the growing number of “parasite singles” accountable for the trend. The term refers to young working people aged between 28 and 40 years who decide to keep living comfortably in their parents' homes to save money. An alternative explanation is the more active participation of Japanese women in society. Increasingly more women in Japan obtain higher education degrees and focus on their career paths. With a rising income, they are financially less dependent, and marriage is no longer essential to afford the life they pursue. Delayed family planningThe overall number of newly registered marriages has also declined in the past decade. The reported number of marriages was around 474,740 in 2023, representing the sixth consecutive years below 600,000. These developments concerning marriages have also impacted the mean age of childbearing, which has risen considerably since the 1970s.

The average age at which people in England and Wales get married has been getting older since the 1970s, with the average age of men marrying women rising from 27.4 in 1972 to 39.7 by 2019, with the average age for women marrying men increasing from 24.7 to 37.3 in the same time period. Since 2014, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in England and Wales, the average age for men marrying men has fluctuated between 39.5 and 40.8, while the average age for females marrying females has fluctuated between 36.4 and 37.4.

In 2022, there were 67.85 million married men and 68.45 million married women living in the United States. This is compared to 3.7 million widowed men and 11.48 million widowed women.

Marriage in the United States

Nevada had the highest marriage rate in the United States in 2021, followed by Hawaii and Montana. This can be attributed to marriage accessibility in the state. Las Vegas weddings are known for being quick, easy, and inexpensive chapel weddings. In comparison to the cheap weddings available in Las Vegas, the average expenditure for a wedding in the United States was the highest in New Jersey, clocking in at 51,000 U.S. dollars.

Same-sex marriage

The number of Americans who think that same-sex marriage should be recognized by law has more than doubled since 1996, while the number of Americans who think it should not be valid has decreased. It was not until June 26, 2015 that the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Before then, it was up to the states to decide if they allowed same-sex marriage. States in the Southeast are the most opposed to same-sex marriage, whereas the strongest support comes from Northern coastal states.

This statistic shows the reasons why the average marriage age is getting higher in South Korea in 2018. According to the survey, about 59.5 percent of singles stated that people get married later because the wedding is too expensive.

In 2022, the median age for the first wedding among women in the United States stood at 28.6 years. For men, the median age was 30.5 years. The median age of Americans at their first wedding has been steadily increasing for both men and women since 1998.

In 2022, the marriage rate in the United States stood at 6.2 per 1,000 people of the population. This is a decrease from 1990 levels, when the marriage rate was 9.8 marriages per 1,000 people. Marriage Marriage is a union that can legally, culturally, and financially bind two people. Marriage occurs between all genders, races, and cultures. Marriage is drastically different all around the world, due to the diversity of cultures and religions. Marriage can be recognized by a state, religious authority, or an organization. Typically viewed as contract, it brings people together through a multitude of avenues. A part of marriage is the wedding, for which couples can decide to partake in or not. Weddings are also incredibly diverse and vary in time, money, and customs. Marriage in the United States Marriage in the United States is viewed differently across all 50 states. The number of married couples in the United States has been steadily increasing since 1960. On the other hand, the divorce rate in the United States has decreased since 1990. Nevada was the state in 2021 that had the highest marriage rate in the United States, due to easy accessibility to get married there. In 2021, Nevada was also the state with the highest divorce rate in the country.

in 2023, on average, women in Germany got married sometime after turning 32 years old. The graph confirms that marriage took place later and later every year. Various reasons may contribute to this development. Life today Women can simply afford, in various senses of the word, to marry later than before. Being unmarried, regardless of age, has mostly ceased to be stigmatized or unusual for women in Germany. This does not exclude pressure, attention or curiosity from others about the topic, or a woman’s relationship status. It also does not exclude the desire of women to get married. However, in general, attitudes have relaxed significantly in recent decades, nor are there any legal restrictions for unmarried women in terms of education, employment, healthcare, renting or owning property. Women’s life expectancy at birth has increased steadily in Germany, with the latest figures citing 83.2 years. It is also not unusual for Germans to have children outside of a marriage. In fact, figures have been climbing annually since the 1990s and in 2023, around a third of children born, were born outside a marriage. Whether this happens due to a decision made mutually, individually or other circumstances, a woman being shunned for having a child out of wedlock is definitely a thing of the past. Changing demographics Marrying at a later age than in the 1990s, when women got married in their mid to late twenties, is also part of a general demographic shift in Germany, such as the increase in single households (though it does not necessarily mean that the person is unmarried, they might be in a long-distance marriage, for example). Women may also still be studying or traveling before their thirties, preferring to concentrate on concluding these chapters in their lives before proceeding to marriage, especially if they do not yet have a full-time job.

The average length of marriages dissolved by death was 47.3 years in Sweden in 2022. In contrast, the average length of marriages dissolved by divorce was 12.2 years that year. In the past decade, the length of marriages dissolved by both divorce and by death were relatively stable. The number of divorces in Sweden fell by over 2,000 in 2022, dropping to 21,531.

Average age at first marriage highest among men

The average age at first marriage in Sweden increased over the last decade. In 2021, the average age at first marriage among women was 34.2 years, which was an increase of 1.1 years compared to 2011. Among men, the age increase for the average age at first marriage was 0.7 years, reaching an average age of 36.3 years at the first marriage in 2021.

Most marriages among people between 30 and 34 years

The most common age of marriage in 2022 was 30 to 34 years of age. In this age group, over 28,000 individuals got married that year. More than half of all marriages in Sweden in 2022 were among individuals from 25 to 39 years.

In 2023, the average age of men at marriage was of 34.7. For women, this value was 31.7 years. Across the period under scrutiny, the average age at marriage has experienced an upward trend for both genders.

Between the 1950s and today, the average age to marry in the Netherlands increased significantly for both genders. Whereas in 1950, men were on average 30 years old when they married and women were nearly 27 years old, in 2022 this was 39.1 and 36.4 years respectively. This raise in the average age at marriage however meant a decrease in the number of marriages per person, which decreased by almost 0.20 in the last decade alone. The average Dutch person married between 0.48 and 0.47 times in 2021.

 Number of marriages   

In 2021, roughly 56,000 marriages took place. The majority of these marriages were closed between a man and a woman, but since same-sex marriages were legalized in the Netherlands in 2001, each year also between 1,000 and 2,400 same-sex couples tie the knot. In the last decade, the number of marriages peaked in 2010, when almost 86,000 marriages took place.

Living happily ever after  

In 2021, nearly 60,000 couples celebrated 12.5 years of marital bliss, and a further 51.9 thousand couples had been married for 25 years. And of course, with time the number of special wedding anniversaries decreases, as divorce or death dissolves many a marriage. Still, that year 327 couples celebrated 70 years of wedded life together.

Every year, less and less Italians decide to walk down the aisle and join in the wedlock with their other half. In 2023, the country registered 3.1 marriages per 1,000 individuals, roughly one union less than in 2008. In 2020, the marriage rate dropped considerably due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching only 1.6 celebrations per 1,000 people. The region with the highest marriage rate in 2023 was Sicily, where 3.7 couples per 1,000 inhabitants got married. Brides and grooms always older Italians postpone to a later date their decision to tie the knot. Back in the 1990s, the average age of the Italian brides at marriage was 26.8 years, whereas in 2017 this figure was about 31 years. The average age of mothers at childbirth also increased in the last decades, augmenting almost by two years since 2002. In 2022, the mean age was 32.4 years. Various reasons of not getting married There are different motives why people decide not to get married. When asked about the reason they didn’t get married, the majority of Italian singles replied, that they did not find the right person. On the other hand, about 17 percent of individuals cohabiting together with their partner stated that they don’t believe in marriage, whereas roughly one-fourth of the respondents never felt the need to do it.

The mean age at first marriage in Spain was, along with Sweden, one of the highest in the European Union. Based on this setup, it is no wonder that the Spanish autonomous communities featured quite elevated numbers - particularly in the Canary Islands, where the average age at first marriage stood at over 41 years old for men and over 38 for women in 2023. Easy come easy go Marriage might be undergoing a declining popularity among Spaniards, or so it would seem by its national (heterosexual) marriage figures, which have experienced a slight decrease overtime. In 2023, the Balearic Islands recording the highest numbers on the list of marriage rate in Spain, with a rate of 4.43 marriages per 1,000 people. Moreover, Spain has one of the highest divorce rates in Europe, with 85.5 divorces per 100 marriages carried out in this country in 2020. Ageing: a common problem across the continent The age at first marriage is not the only digit that is on the rise in Spain. Data related to age in the Mediterranean country essentially behaves in a similar fashion as the rest of its European counterparts, whose population is also slowly but surely getting older. In 2023, the life expectancy at birth in Spain stood at 83.77 years, one of the highest in the world.

In 2023, the average age at marriage for at an opposite-sex wedding in Ireland was 37.7 years for men and 35.8 years for women. For male same-sex marriages, the average age at marriage was 40.8, while for female same-sex marriages it was 38.

This statistic contains data on the estimated median age of Americans at their first wedding in the United States in 2021, by race and origin. In 2021, the median age for the first wedding among Asian women stood at 28.8 years.

How many married couples are in the U.S.? In 2023, there were 62.18 million married couples in the United States. This is an increase from 40.2 million married couples in 1960. Marriage in the U.S. While the number of married couples in the U.S. has increased in the past few decades, this could very well just be due to population change, since while the U.S. population has been increasing, the marriage rate has decreased significantly since 1990. In addition, the divorce rate has almost halved since 1990 despite concerns that more people are getting divorced than in years past. Same-sex marriage in the U.S. After years of advocacy, same-sex marriage became legal in the United States in June 2015. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in a landmark ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. In 2015, a clear majority of Americans were in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage, and approval has only been increasing in the years since.

81 percent of the Silent generation were married between the age of 23 and 38. This is true for only 44 percent of Millennials.

In 2023, the median age of females at their first marriage in New Zealand was 31.8 years, significantly older than the average age of marriage in 1980. The median age of people getting married in the country has continued to increase over the past few decades, reflecting the changing societal attitudes across different generations in the country.

After increasing from 2011 to 2020, the average age of people at their first marriage fell marginally in 2021 for both men and women. However, it increased slightly again in 2022 and 2023. Men were on average older than women at their first marriage, with 36.8 years and 34.9 years respectively in 2023. Most common age at first marriage In 2022, more than 80,000 people got married in Sweden . Of these, people between 30 and 34 years made up the largest age group. Length of a marriage A marriage in Sweden lasted on average 47.3 years in 2022 if it was dissolved by death. For marriages dissolved by divorce, the average length was 12.2 years. The length of marriages dissolved by divorce increased slightly over the last 10 years, while the length of marriages dissolved by death was relatively stable.

Since the mid-2000s the average age at first wedding in France increased gradually, for both men and women. It seems to be common for the first marriage to be celebrated later and later in Western countries. For example, the median age at first marriage in the United States went from 26.8 years old for males and 25 years old for females in 1997, up to 30.3 years old for males and 28.4 for females in 2019. Same thing occurred in Europe where Sweden was the country where the median age at first wedding was the oldest in 2019.

French people wait longer to marry

According to the source, in 2004, the average age at first wedding for French men was 30.8 compared to 28.8 for women. If men still tend to be older than women at first marriage, the average age at marriage for both males and females increased from 2004 to 2021. In 2021, men were aged on average 39.2 at their first wedding, compared to 36.8 for women. Most marriages in France happened between men and women despite the implementation of same-sex marriage in 2013. Mean age at gay marriages appear to be even older than in different-sex wedding.

Marriage and divorce in France

Thus, the percentage of married persons in France decreased since 2006, while the share of single and divorced people rose. However, in 2016, France was the second European country with the highest number of marriages behind Germany. On the other hand, like most other Western nations, France also has an important divorce rate. In 2016, the number of French divorces was of 55 per 100 marriages.

In 2023, the majority of men and women who got married in Romania were between 25 and 29 years old. The share of women who got married by 19 years old was considerably higher than that of men, while 2.8 percent of men got married over 60 years old compared to only 1.4 percent of women.