The marriage rate in England and Wales, defined as the number of people marrying per 1,000 unmarried people in the population aged 16 and over, was 17.9 in 2019. Before 2020, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the lowest marriage rate in the provided time period.

Number of marriages that took place in England and Wales by age, sex, previous partnership status and civil or religious ceremony.

Since the 1970s, the marriage rate for opposite-sex couples in England and Wales has declined considerably, with the marriage rate per thousand population falling from 84 to 20.3 for men between 1972 and 2022, and from 63.5 to 18.3 for women, during the same time period. Three spikes in the marriage rate can be seen in 1915, 1920 and 1940, all likely influenced by the impact of the First and Second World Wars. The drop in the marriage rate in 2020 can be attributed to the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Annual statistics on the number of marriages and marriage rates. Statistics are also included on the day, month and quarter of occurrence. Some tables provide data back to 1837.

In 2019 the divorce rate in England and Wales was 8.9 divorces per thousand married couples, which was significantly higher than the rate in 2018 which was 7.5. The Divorce rate in England and Wales has been falling steadily since a rate of 13.3 was recorded in 2003 and 2004. In the last available data for Scotland in 2008, the divorce rate was 11.1.

Annual divorce numbers and rates, by duration of marriage, sex, to whom granted, and reason.

In 2019, 253,112 marriages took place in the UK in 2019, a decrease from 2018 when there were 270,286. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were just 100,899 marriages in 2020, the fewest during this time period.

In 2022, approximately 66,081 women aged between 30 and 34 got married to men in England and Wales, the most common age group for women marrying opposite-sex partners. The most common age group for men marrying women in this year was also 30 to 34, at 67,225.

Annual marriage statistics by age at marriage and previous marital status. Some tables provide data back to 1846.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

The Great Britain Historical GIS Project has also produced digitised boundary data, which can be obtained from the UK Data Service Census Support service. Further information is available at census.ukdataservice.ac.uk

Main Topics:

The Great Britain Historical Database is a large database of British nineteenth and twentieth-century statistics. Where practical the referencing of spatial units has been integrated, data for different dates have been assembled into single tables.

The Great Britain Historical Database currently contains :

• Statistics from the 1861 Census and the Registrar General's reports, 1851-1861
  
• Employment statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Demographic statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Mortality statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1861-1920
  
• Marriage statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1841-1870
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), 1851-1918
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASCJ), 1863-1912
  
• Official poor law statistics, 1859-1915 and 1919-1939
  
• Wage statistics, 1845-1906
  
• Hours of work statistics, 1900-1913
  
• Small debt statistics from county courts, 1847-1913 and 1938
  

There are four tables in this part of the Great Britain Historical Database :

Mort_age holds mortality data for males and females in age groups for all registration districts in England and Wales for each decade between 1851-60 and 1901-10, except 1871-80.

Mort_age_70 holds age-specific mortality data for the decade 1871-80 for all registration districts in England and Wales. The Registrar General's Decennial Supplement for 1871-80 did not break down by gender the statistics for individual Registration Districts.

Mort_ann holds annual data on mortality classified by cause for all registration districts in the county of London from 1860 to 1910, and for all London boroughs from 1911 to 1920.

Lon_subd holds quarterly data on infant mortality for registration sub-districts in the county of London from 1881 to 1884.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Statistics on marriages which took place in England and Wales which include figures on cohabitation before marriage. The cohort analyses provide statistics on the proportion of men and women who have ever married or remarried by certain ages by year of birth.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

Main Topics:

Registration District Marriage Statistics 1841- 1870.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Presents data on civil partnerships formed and dissolved in the UK.

Source agency: Office for National Statistics

Designation: National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Civil Partnership Statistics, United Kingdom

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.

These datasets are part of "Marriage and civil partnership status in England and Wales: Census 2021", a release of results from the 2021 Census for England and Wales.

To ensure that individuals cannot be identified in the data, population counts have been rounded to the nearest five and counts under 10 have been suppressed.

Figures may differ slightly in future releases because of the impact of removing rounding and applying further statistical processes.

Quality notes can be found here

Usual resident

A usual resident is anyone who on Census Day, 21 March 2021 was in the UK and had stayed or intended to stay in the UK for a period of 12 months or more, or had a permanent UK address and was outside the UK and intended to be outside the UK for less than 12 months.

Legal partnership status

Classifies a person according to their legal marital or registered civil partnership status on Census Day, 21 March 2021. The definition of legal partnership status is the same as the 2011 Census variable “Marital status” but has been updated for Census 2021 to reflect the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019 which made provision for the extension of civil partnerships to couples who are not of the same sex.

Ages of husband and wife at marriage, and analyses of the percentage of marriages ending in divorce by year of marriage and anniversary, and proportions of men and women who had ever divorced by year of birth and age.

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents aged 16 years and over in England and Wales by legal partnership status, by sex and by age. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

Separate estimates by opposite and same-sex partnerships for the marital status categories “Separated”, “Divorced/dissolved” and “Widowed/surviving partners” are not available. This is because quality assurance showed the figures for some of the categories were unreliable. Read more about this quality notice.

Estimates for single year of age between ages 90 and 100+ are less reliable than other ages. Estimation and adjustment at these ages was based on the age range 90+ rather than five-year age bands. Read more about this quality notice.

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Lower tier local authorities

Lower tier local authorities provide a range of local services. There are 309 lower tier local authorities in England made up of 181 non-metropolitan districts, 59 unitary authorities, 36 metropolitan districts and 33 London boroughs (including City of London). In Wales there are 22 local authorities made up of 22 unitary authorities.

Coverage

Census 2021 statistics are published for the whole of England and Wales. However, you can choose to filter areas by:

• country - for example, Wales
• region - for example, London
• local authority - for example, Cornwall
• health area – for example, Clinical Commissioning Group
• statistical area - for example, MSOA or LSOA

Marital and civil partnership status

Classifies a person according to their legal marital or registered civil partnership status on Census Day 21 March 2021.

It is the same as the 2011 census variable "Marital status" but has been updated for Census 2021 to reflect the revised Civil Partnership Act that came into force in 2019.

In Census 2021 results, "single" refers only to someone who has never been married or in a registered civil partnership.

Sex

This is the sex recorded by the person completing the census. The options were “Female” and “Male”.

Age

A person’s age on Census Day, 21 March 2021 in England and Wales. Infants aged under 1 year are classified as 0 years of age.

In 2022, over 28.9 million people in England and Wales were single, compared with 24 million who were married. In the same year, there were 3.8 million people who were divorced, and 3.13 million people who were widowed.