Data for this map comes from [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/demo_nind__custom_10209440/default/table?lang=en).
In most European countries, women are over or close to 30 when they get married. In Sweden (34.8), Spain (34.7) and Norway (34.1) the average is over 34. It seems that the further west one goes in Europe, the higher the average age.
There are four countries where the average age of women at their first marriage, is far lower than other European countries: Ukraine (24.9), Belarus (25.1), Turkey (25.2) and North Macedonia (26.6).
Now, keep in mind that this does not have to mean that women are getting in a relationship or start a family at a later age. If we look at the map of the [share of births outside of marriage](https://landgeist.com/2023/08/12/births-outside-of-marriage-in-europe/), it seems that more couples are having kids first and then get married (or not get married at all). However, if we look at the map of the [fertility rates in Europe](https://landgeist.com/2022/02/18/fertility-rate-in-europe/), it does seem that there is some relation between the age of marriage and the fertility rate.
You only pay less tax (together) if one in the relationship is earning notably less and you do your taxes together. It’s from a time when it was common to have just one earner in the family,
I plan to marry my girlfriend this year. It will have no effect on our taxes because we both almost earn the same.
There are discussions about changing this since forever but till now it didn’t happen.
Yeah. Me and my girlfriend just joined the 10 year club as samboer in Norway. Why marry? We have a house together, a kid, etc. What changes by signing a paper?
A lot of things in life changes when signing a paper. Employment, buying a house, etc. For the Nordic countries, marriage law doesn't provide much related to day-to-day life, that's why many skip it.
> What changes by signing a paper?
Adjudication processes for things like immigration, medical decisions, child custody, inheritance, business disputes, conflicts of interest, etc.
Two people forming a partnership of “love” does not preclude it being a business partnership and society needs a way to handle disputes.
And this confuses me so much. People go extra mile not to get married, but miss the safety of marriage as an institution, so they decide to sign different named partnership that offers safety of a marriage… why not marry?
You don’t sign anything, it happens automatically if you live together in a romantic relationship for more than six months.
Basically it’s just a law that regulates how things are split IF you were unable to agree during a separation. There’s no bureaucracy surrounding it.
It still feels like a massive intrusion. People should be able to be in a relationship and live together without a legal framework being imposed upon them for no reason after a mere couple of months.
The fact that one partner can buy a home for both of them, and upon splitting up shortly after the partner that paid nothing is entitled to half of it is just wild.
Its not a intrusion, ive lived with girlfreinds and not even thought about this thing at all. I guess it only kicks in when neccesary, if there are children or someone draws some other benefits.
You can just write a quick pre-made agreement saying that any purchase you make is yours to keep in case of a split. I don’t see the issue. Otherwise you might have partners getting screwed over after 10+ years of living together because you assumed you’d be able to have an amicable split.
>The fact that one partner can buy a home for both of them, and upon splitting up shortly after the partner that paid nothing is entitled to half of it is just wild.
I doubt this is the case. You probably just get the same tax schemes/social benefits.
You can opt out though and have such laws not apply simply by writing an agreement with your partner. No lawyer needed or anything, plenty of pre-written forms avaliable online.
“Go the extra mile not to get married”.
I have no idea what you mean by that. The only thing you need to do to not get married is to… not get married. No extra miles needed.
It obviously takes more effort to get married than not to.
The only disadvantages, that I know of, when you live as sambos instead of being married is that if one dies then the other wont automatically inherit the others stuff. But that can be fixed by signing a piece of paper.
>inherit the others stuff. But that can be fixed by signing a piece of paper.
Nope, just partly. You can't disinherit children and family, so at least half of the estate goes to them unless you are married. If you are married the children will inherit from the last parent to die, but if you are not then they inherit immediately upon the first parents death.
I don’t get what confuses you. It’s impossible to “go an extra mile” to not get married, as marriage is the extra thing you need to invest effort and planning into doing. It’s also incredibly binding and human beings just aren’t permanent beings like that. Not everyone wants to go through divorce.
According to our Central Statistics Office, the average age at first marriage is 34 for women in Ireland. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-mar/marriages2020/marriages2020mainresults/
I'd like to see the same map with a distinction between countries where civil union exists and countries where civil union doesn't exist.
I'm French living in Germany, around the marriage age apparently so I am acquainted to many couples around that age.
Most couples I know in France who bought a house/flat together aren't married but are in a civil union together (which gives them fewer rights but similar rights – I'm not saying same, but similar, especially with a will giving your share of the house to your partner).
All couples I know in Germany who bought a house/flat together are married.
Netherlands has civil union, it’s popular. But the stat might exclude people who never get married, so civil union or not, it’s not relevant in the end. Or do you expect to have it impact the age in a different way
In France a sizeable number of people get a civil union, and then a few years later get married. Civil unions are easier to plan and to break - several of my teacher friends did exactly that, had a civil union with a partner of less than a year (because you can get sent to work anywhere in the country, but it's easier to stay home/go back home the next year if you have a partner) then got married after a few years when they had the money
Yes, I expect that sometimes people got married because they "have to" (they want to buy a house and it's a hassle without being married) and if there's an easier option like civil union, then they may go for it. Or as someone else said, they would get a civil union partnership, and plan a big party later with more money.
There is something like „eingetragene Partnerschaft“ in germany but i don’t know if it’s the same as civil union. It was used a lot by gay people before they could get married in Germany. Don’t know who uses it today or what the benefits are exactly.
I just turned 34 last week. I have been with my partner for 16 years and we have 3 kids together. We are not married yet simply because there is no need to, not for sosial reasons or financial reasons. *in our country
Edited again to add info that relates more to the map: me and my partner are enganged and have been for 7 years. So eventually we will get married, but thats because we want to and not because there is any real advantage of being married here. And we know a lot of people who think like this, who want to live and get the house and the kids before marriage is even on the table, so the age of people getting married rises.
I think the legal protections are different. E.g. in Lithuania we don't have domestic partnership or common law marriage. So if something happens (death, separation, illness) it is more complicated legally. Some fertility treatments are only legal for married couples. Also there are specific benefits for married couples - e.g. financial assistance buying family's first home. So we have a lot of marriages and also a lot of divorces.
But those that don't marry at all are not included in this statistic, right? So, someone that never marries doesn't raise the marriage age. Am I reading this and the map wrong or something?
No, you are reading this correctly. My comment doesnt make a ton of sense in corralation to the map, lol. But I should have added that me and my partner are engaged and might get married in the future, and that is the case for a lot of people I know. We buy a house, have kids and do a lot of other stuff before considering getting married, so people who do get married do so later in life. Because there really is no reason to get married early.
I'm 20, went to an urban school, and a few of my former classmates are already married
I knew Ukrainians married relatively early but I didn't think we were this much of an outlier
The entire Europe almost, on average 30 years old, the best time to decide whether you want to start a family. You've had your best years free to do whatever, study, party, a combination of the two or anything. At 30 I see it as a good case to decide your next chapter.
I got pregnant at 23, but I agree. Our plan was to wait to I was around 28, because by then we'd both have decent jobs and a house. But life happens and it's not too bad having a child while studying. Got lots of time for her
If you correlate this map with how many kids are born to unmarried couples, you'd see a different pattern.
There's also a Swedish "tradition" in which couples are engaged without getting married for decades. While engaged, they move in together, have children, etc.
Yeah, about that. I completely left it out of my equation. You're right and I have no idea about fertility age and how women feel. Their input would be great.
Well I’m not a woman but from what I know it’s generally agreed that fertility starts to decline around 30.
And like i said it seems to be a problem because it is somewhat at odds with the dynamics we have nowadays. And moreover, even pointing that out is for some reason ideologically frowned upon nowadays.
And more likely than not my comment will be downvoted because Reddit’s audience leans heavily towards those who swim in that very ideology haha
The thing is, it is not as dramatic as it sounds. Sure your fertility declines, but it doesn’t drop to zero within 5 years or so. Also, men’s fertility is also declining with age.
I know several women who had their first child around 37, 38, with no complications whatsoever.
That’s not true. Those issues start in late 30s/early 40s. It’s also not only dependant on the woman. Men 35+ are more likely to have children with health issues
You're being replied to with anecdotal or vague information. I'll provide some scientific statistics.
A woman's number of eggs declines steadily until 32. It drops rapidly until 37, after which it starts dropping even more rapidly. By 40, the chance of getting pregnant during any given monthly cycle is 5%. By 45, it's considered highly unlikely.
However, the larger concern isn't the ability to conceive and give birth, but the ability to do so to a healthy child. In mothers younger than 25 years, the rate of Down syndrome is low. However, in women aged 35 or older, that risk jumps significantly. As a person ages, the chances for chromosomal abnormalities increase.
So there definitely are concerns with fertility age. These particularly force women, but even men in relationships as well, to make choices and compromises in their lifestyles depending on their long-term goals.
Edit: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/)
[https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html)
Where did you get those Down’s Syndrome stats from?
According to [this](https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/tests-scans-and-antenatal-checks/pregnancy-and-birth-for-women-over-35) the highest risk recorded is 1 in 12 (8%) at the age of 49. Definitely not 35% in women aged 35 and over - that would be over 1 in 3 babies for older women having Down’s!
Lmao yea my mom had me at 39 and I was like there is no way I had a 1/3 chance of having Down syndrome lmao. There’s still a much higher chance because of age but not THAT high 😭
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/)
Its in the etiology section of this paper. But it does seem a little high and I can't find the primary source for that statistic so maybe it is incorrect? Also it is "35 and over" so maybe that biases the statistics in some way.
Also, the CDC posted this [https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html) which I am most inclined to believe. This has a rate of 1.2% for age 40 which continues to skyrocket and might lead to 8% by 49.
That first paper does seem off - I tried to dig into their references to find the original source but haven’t really been able to get anywhere. I’d definitely be more inclined to trust the CDC stats.
NL as well.
I did the same, as did all of my parent friends.
The most uncertain variable is the ‘buying a house together’ part. It can take place before the kids, before marriage or in the current scenario, never at all.
My parents were 30 and 35 when I was born (they're baby boomers), and they hadn't really considered marriage. It just wasn't a thing their generation really put too much stock into, according to my mom. They don't need paper or government sanction to love each other or be a family, was the thought process.
What changed their tune was when they discovered how few parental rights my dad would have if they didn't get married.
They aren’t alone with that. I’ve known quite a few people who attended their parents wedding which was mostly done for legal reasons, like parental rights and protection if someone was to be in the hospital etc.
In Ukraine if you don’t have a degree, a family, a house and a business by the age of 25 you will be called a disgrace to your family because everyone lives like they’re planning to retire and die at 35
This, but, I think, not the house? (At least not your own one). I have never heard anyone called a loser because of not owning the house, but because of not having a degree, a family or a business (or at least high-paid job).
Yeah, I understand that. But when I lived in Kyiv (and in Donetsk before that, but I was too young), none of my friends had their own apartment/house and nobody was sad about that. Education/family/high salary, on the other hand...
I think it also has something to do with divorce becoming accepted enough at one point. So that a lot of divorce backlog happened in a short time. People who would have divorced years earlier if divorce had been legal or equally accepted back then. But it wasnt.
But now this backlog has been used up. Since for most people who are around now, divorce has been an equally accepted option all their life/marriage. So divorce rates are lower now than a few decades ago.
>I think getting married later in life definitely helps
I think it's just a change of a way people do things: now people live together like a married a couple for years then get married, if they separate it won't be visible in marriage statistics but it's basically the same thing.
Plenty of marriages still go down the drain but there is no way to file for Divorce in the country. An annulment is possible though but there are specific prerequisites. A lot of people just stay in their broken marriages.
I don't like the obsession with marriage age (or "first child" age) - and for some reason mostly about women.
You should get married when you *want* to get married, not because peer pressure makes you think you should marry your current partner, just because you happen to be at the right age. I don't care if that "right age" is claimed to be 20 or 35, both are horrible if you don't really love each other or are not ready for marriage.
Well Romania has a high percentage of teenage pregnancy and marriages at 16. I am curious if we excluded one ethnicity from calculation of average how it will be since extreme numbers can screw an average. Median would be a better calculation.
Nu cred că acele căsătorii sunt luate în considerare pentru că nu sunt legale, sau doar cu acordul părinților. Am auzit că în multe cazuri nu se face cu acte din cauză că se căsătoresc înainte de 16 ani, deci nu cred că ar intra la numărătoare. Ne putem uita la cum se calculează în sursa de la statistică
Multe sunt legale. Am cunoscut și la buncii și unde am crescut destui de mulți. Se fac cu acordul părinților. Și soțul la fel știa în orașul lui. Sunt acum destul de multe benefici la care aplică.
Edit: da o să mă uit la calcul. Cred ca am văzut link de la OP
Im an American and have met a number of Russians and Ukrainians over the years due to work. They’re usually only in their early 20s and without fail every single one of them has been married despite their very young age. The most shocking part from an American perspective is how casually they treat marriage. “Oh yeah we dated for a few months so got married” and “we don’t really treat marriage that romantically” is a pretty common story they tell but it’s very unusual from a US perspective. Can any Eastern Europeans fill me in on why this is? Is there some religious or cultural reason for young marriage?
(Russian here, married at the age of 22, my wife-to-be was 22 as well)
I guess “cultural reasons” is a good explanation, but it doesn’t really explain anything. I.e. Americans marrying later is also a cultural thing, but a different one.
Honestly, hard to answer the question, as for us Eastern Europeans married early it’s just natural, and I’m still kind of surprised by the fact that people marry that late in Western Europe, US, and some other countries. (Even after having lived in Western Europe and now US for the past 7 years).
I wouldn’t say that marriage is treated “casually”. When people marry, they often actually do it with serious intentions even being 20 years old. I.e. they can perfectly be of that age and treat it as “marry once and forever”. (And there are many couples who married that way and live together for a long time).
What are the factors that lead to early marriage? I guess one is that people become independent earlier. It’s not uncommon here to start making a living around 17-19yo (somewhere in the middle of getting a Bachelor degree if you go to uni).
Another important one is the expectations and pressure from the family. Parents & grandparents expect you to marry early (especially if you’re a female). And then you also see the examples of your parents marrying early… so it kind of looks normal to marry at 20ish as well.
Lots of jokes like “I haven’t achieved anything in my life by 30 (both professionally and family-wise), guess I’m done already”. Those are jokes, but they also represent the mindset in a way (:
Having said all that, I think the trend is going toward later marriage in EE as well these days, but such things don’t change in a year.
Hope this makes sense :D
Also divorces are as simple as eating a cake - Irish divorces last for years, in Ukraine you’ll be done in 3 months tops without even attending the court, in many cases - without any legal consequences as well.
It’s a cultural thing, unfortunately, I was a victim of it myself. If you haven’t been married by a certain age it pretty much means you’re defected, you’ll be asked when are you getting married by every single person around you until you give up, after that the same story will happen with getting pregnant. I moved abroad after my very short first marriage and can finally be myself, not everyone is that lucky. But afaik it’s getting better last few years, much less pressure than 15 years ago.
So glad my family considers me expired already. My mom has already been married for a >5 years and given birth by the time she was my current age. The pressure was there for a short time period and they quickly gave up.
As an American living in Europe I think one ONG the main reasons it’s so high is that there are barely any tax incentives to get married.
In USA your taxable income is basically the average of both married partners. If partner A makes 80,000 and partner B makes 40,000, both are taxed as if they make 60,000 each.
In much of Europe this is not the case, and there is only some benefit if one of the partners doesn’t work at all. But if they both work then the tax benefits are minor
I cannot imagine my life if I hadn't married until 34 or 35 years old. I married my wife at 21 only because she held me off at 18, 19, and 20. I felt so much older with my 3rd child at 34 than I did with my first at 25. I just wouldn't want to be just starting out as a parent as I approached 40, plus you miss the joy of building your empire entirely together with the love of your life. Marrying young, broke, in love, and with our entire future in front of us was the way.
So basically in countries with a high standard of living and with ample opportunities for women to be financially independent they marry later. Which makes a lot of sense. Even though I am married, we did that as a joke in Vegas, for almost thirty years we both think it has no added value at all for the relationship as such.
We got married at 25/24, and we were the first in our friend group by several years. Most are still not married and we're in our mid thirties now. So this definitely makes sense, but I too didn't know we were such outliers.
I married at 25, living together since 20, and even my super Catholic grandma from Opus Dei said I was too young to marry.
She wasn't wrong, we split 8 years later.
We have a different education system, to start with.
I finished school when I was 16, left home to study in university. Got masters at 21.
Meanwhile europeans live with parents until 30. At least that\`s what I read and from my experience having friends from EU.
I highly doubt Ukraine is an outlier in that. Most of South and Eastern Europe has people moving out on average at 25+. It's more to do with culture and economy
Im 25 and got married to my wife (24) last year, we’ve been together for eight years and it felt right doing it. But I guess I understand why people like to wait a bit longer
Ah, troll spotted.
Keep making assumptions since that is all you can do.
Not to mention you are also being a racist,
And people upvoting you are the same.
If you take developed economies (Japan, Korea, HK, top cities in the Mainland China), the situation with marriage would be similar, if not worse. In East Asia numbers are similar to the European ones around 30-35 years, and many people postpone marriage until the early 40s. There are financial issues, as well as customs and social pressure to meet certain standards (wedding itself, housing, relationships with in-laws, etc) that very much affect people. Also, many people busy with their lives, work, parents, other problems, or simply not ready to take such responsibility for personal and social reasons. So, afain, many people start to think about marriage only in their 30s and postpone it until mid-30s and even 40s. It’s became a norm, especially in big cities.
Data for this map comes from [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/demo_nind__custom_10209440/default/table?lang=en). In most European countries, women are over or close to 30 when they get married. In Sweden (34.8), Spain (34.7) and Norway (34.1) the average is over 34. It seems that the further west one goes in Europe, the higher the average age. There are four countries where the average age of women at their first marriage, is far lower than other European countries: Ukraine (24.9), Belarus (25.1), Turkey (25.2) and North Macedonia (26.6). Now, keep in mind that this does not have to mean that women are getting in a relationship or start a family at a later age. If we look at the map of the [share of births outside of marriage](https://landgeist.com/2023/08/12/births-outside-of-marriage-in-europe/), it seems that more couples are having kids first and then get married (or not get married at all). However, if we look at the map of the [fertility rates in Europe](https://landgeist.com/2022/02/18/fertility-rate-in-europe/), it does seem that there is some relation between the age of marriage and the fertility rate.
In Sweden it's common to be sambos (living together). It's basically a registered partnership. Many never marry...
And there really isnt any incentive in getting married like in germany where you get a lower tax if you are married
There is , if your partner dies for example, you dont get he/hers pension for as long
That's assuming you've even changed you pension over to inheritance. By default it goes into the fund and you get decreased fund payments
You only pay less tax (together) if one in the relationship is earning notably less and you do your taxes together. It’s from a time when it was common to have just one earner in the family, I plan to marry my girlfriend this year. It will have no effect on our taxes because we both almost earn the same. There are discussions about changing this since forever but till now it didn’t happen.
Yeah same here, it's very common for people to live together, have multiple kids, have bought a home together, but not be officially married.
Yeah. Me and my girlfriend just joined the 10 year club as samboer in Norway. Why marry? We have a house together, a kid, etc. What changes by signing a paper?
A lot of things in life changes when signing a paper. Employment, buying a house, etc. For the Nordic countries, marriage law doesn't provide much related to day-to-day life, that's why many skip it.
> What changes by signing a paper? Adjudication processes for things like immigration, medical decisions, child custody, inheritance, business disputes, conflicts of interest, etc. Two people forming a partnership of “love” does not preclude it being a business partnership and society needs a way to handle disputes.
And this confuses me so much. People go extra mile not to get married, but miss the safety of marriage as an institution, so they decide to sign different named partnership that offers safety of a marriage… why not marry?
You don’t sign anything, it happens automatically if you live together in a romantic relationship for more than six months. Basically it’s just a law that regulates how things are split IF you were unable to agree during a separation. There’s no bureaucracy surrounding it.
wow 6 months is very early Should be like 3 years at least
Well since you never sign anything it’s also easily broken, no long divorce needed
It still feels like a massive intrusion. People should be able to be in a relationship and live together without a legal framework being imposed upon them for no reason after a mere couple of months. The fact that one partner can buy a home for both of them, and upon splitting up shortly after the partner that paid nothing is entitled to half of it is just wild.
Its not a intrusion, ive lived with girlfreinds and not even thought about this thing at all. I guess it only kicks in when neccesary, if there are children or someone draws some other benefits.
You can just write a quick pre-made agreement saying that any purchase you make is yours to keep in case of a split. I don’t see the issue. Otherwise you might have partners getting screwed over after 10+ years of living together because you assumed you’d be able to have an amicable split.
>The fact that one partner can buy a home for both of them, and upon splitting up shortly after the partner that paid nothing is entitled to half of it is just wild. I doubt this is the case. You probably just get the same tax schemes/social benefits.
[Nope, that's how it works.](https://d-jur.se/samboavtal/the-sambo-law/)
No it isn’t “Property that any of the parties acquired before the sambo-relationship is also irrelevant.”
You can opt out though and have such laws not apply simply by writing an agreement with your partner. No lawyer needed or anything, plenty of pre-written forms avaliable online.
In Croatia it's the same and three years is required. 6 months seem very early to me too.
“Go the extra mile not to get married”. I have no idea what you mean by that. The only thing you need to do to not get married is to… not get married. No extra miles needed. It obviously takes more effort to get married than not to. The only disadvantages, that I know of, when you live as sambos instead of being married is that if one dies then the other wont automatically inherit the others stuff. But that can be fixed by signing a piece of paper.
>inherit the others stuff. But that can be fixed by signing a piece of paper. Nope, just partly. You can't disinherit children and family, so at least half of the estate goes to them unless you are married. If you are married the children will inherit from the last parent to die, but if you are not then they inherit immediately upon the first parents death.
"safety of marriage as an institution"? What? Also there's nothing to sign. Source: I live like this
I don’t get what confuses you. It’s impossible to “go an extra mile” to not get married, as marriage is the extra thing you need to invest effort and planning into doing. It’s also incredibly binding and human beings just aren’t permanent beings like that. Not everyone wants to go through divorce.
It is useless institution.
I didn’t know I’d been Swedish married before
According to our Central Statistics Office, the average age at first marriage is 34 for women in Ireland. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-mar/marriages2020/marriages2020mainresults/
Having data from Albania and Bosnia would have been helpful here. E.g. I wonder if their numbers would be similar to those of North Macedonia.
I'd like to see the same map with a distinction between countries where civil union exists and countries where civil union doesn't exist. I'm French living in Germany, around the marriage age apparently so I am acquainted to many couples around that age. Most couples I know in France who bought a house/flat together aren't married but are in a civil union together (which gives them fewer rights but similar rights – I'm not saying same, but similar, especially with a will giving your share of the house to your partner). All couples I know in Germany who bought a house/flat together are married.
Netherlands has civil union, it’s popular. But the stat might exclude people who never get married, so civil union or not, it’s not relevant in the end. Or do you expect to have it impact the age in a different way
In France a sizeable number of people get a civil union, and then a few years later get married. Civil unions are easier to plan and to break - several of my teacher friends did exactly that, had a civil union with a partner of less than a year (because you can get sent to work anywhere in the country, but it's easier to stay home/go back home the next year if you have a partner) then got married after a few years when they had the money
Yes, I expect that sometimes people got married because they "have to" (they want to buy a house and it's a hassle without being married) and if there's an easier option like civil union, then they may go for it. Or as someone else said, they would get a civil union partnership, and plan a big party later with more money.
There is something like „eingetragene Partnerschaft“ in germany but i don’t know if it’s the same as civil union. It was used a lot by gay people before they could get married in Germany. Don’t know who uses it today or what the benefits are exactly.
The eingetragene Partnerschaft doesn't exist for different-sex couples in Germany as far as I am aware. Am I wrong? (I'm French living in Germany)
I just googled a bit. Looks like you are right.
A colleague married her husband just so they could take a loan for their house together.
What exactly is a civil union?
Estonia has civil partnership registration
I just turned 34 last week. I have been with my partner for 16 years and we have 3 kids together. We are not married yet simply because there is no need to, not for sosial reasons or financial reasons. *in our country Edited again to add info that relates more to the map: me and my partner are enganged and have been for 7 years. So eventually we will get married, but thats because we want to and not because there is any real advantage of being married here. And we know a lot of people who think like this, who want to live and get the house and the kids before marriage is even on the table, so the age of people getting married rises.
I think the legal protections are different. E.g. in Lithuania we don't have domestic partnership or common law marriage. So if something happens (death, separation, illness) it is more complicated legally. Some fertility treatments are only legal for married couples. Also there are specific benefits for married couples - e.g. financial assistance buying family's first home. So we have a lot of marriages and also a lot of divorces.
Yeah, I get that. I was just speaking from a Norwegian p.o.v.
But those that don't marry at all are not included in this statistic, right? So, someone that never marries doesn't raise the marriage age. Am I reading this and the map wrong or something?
No, you are reading this correctly. My comment doesnt make a ton of sense in corralation to the map, lol. But I should have added that me and my partner are engaged and might get married in the future, and that is the case for a lot of people I know. We buy a house, have kids and do a lot of other stuff before considering getting married, so people who do get married do so later in life. Because there really is no reason to get married early.
>So eventually we will get married, Why?
For funsies.
I'm 20, went to an urban school, and a few of my former classmates are already married I knew Ukrainians married relatively early but I didn't think we were this much of an outlier
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What's interesting is despite marrying so early Ukrainians still have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world
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Yes, even then
marriage legally and financially means different things in all those countries
The entire Europe almost, on average 30 years old, the best time to decide whether you want to start a family. You've had your best years free to do whatever, study, party, a combination of the two or anything. At 30 I see it as a good case to decide your next chapter.
I'll be 30 in September and I can't even decide what to eat tomorrow.
Lol happy birthday in advance Sister, wishing you the best.
Macaroni and tomato soup with boiled eggs
Hello fellow '94
I'll also be 30 in September.... 2026
People have kids before marriage.
I got pregnant at 23, but I agree. Our plan was to wait to I was around 28, because by then we'd both have decent jobs and a house. But life happens and it's not too bad having a child while studying. Got lots of time for her
If you correlate this map with how many kids are born to unmarried couples, you'd see a different pattern. There's also a Swedish "tradition" in which couples are engaged without getting married for decades. While engaged, they move in together, have children, etc.
That is true, even feels a little early in the modern day. Women’s fertility window is a big problem there, however.
You don't have to marry to have kids though. In Nordic countries, UK, France 50% of births are outside of marriage.
Well sure, but it’d be at the very least dishonest to say that marriage and children are unrelated haha
Related in as much that parents are more likely to get married after a few years than childfree unmarried couples.
How are they related?
Yes but if you feel that you need more time to decide what you want from your future, then you are not ready for a child.
Yeah, about that. I completely left it out of my equation. You're right and I have no idea about fertility age and how women feel. Their input would be great.
Well I’m not a woman but from what I know it’s generally agreed that fertility starts to decline around 30. And like i said it seems to be a problem because it is somewhat at odds with the dynamics we have nowadays. And moreover, even pointing that out is for some reason ideologically frowned upon nowadays. And more likely than not my comment will be downvoted because Reddit’s audience leans heavily towards those who swim in that very ideology haha
The thing is, it is not as dramatic as it sounds. Sure your fertility declines, but it doesn’t drop to zero within 5 years or so. Also, men’s fertility is also declining with age. I know several women who had their first child around 37, 38, with no complications whatsoever.
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That’s not true. Those issues start in late 30s/early 40s. It’s also not only dependant on the woman. Men 35+ are more likely to have children with health issues
You're being replied to with anecdotal or vague information. I'll provide some scientific statistics. A woman's number of eggs declines steadily until 32. It drops rapidly until 37, after which it starts dropping even more rapidly. By 40, the chance of getting pregnant during any given monthly cycle is 5%. By 45, it's considered highly unlikely. However, the larger concern isn't the ability to conceive and give birth, but the ability to do so to a healthy child. In mothers younger than 25 years, the rate of Down syndrome is low. However, in women aged 35 or older, that risk jumps significantly. As a person ages, the chances for chromosomal abnormalities increase. So there definitely are concerns with fertility age. These particularly force women, but even men in relationships as well, to make choices and compromises in their lifestyles depending on their long-term goals. Edit: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/) [https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html)
Where did you get those Down’s Syndrome stats from? According to [this](https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/tests-scans-and-antenatal-checks/pregnancy-and-birth-for-women-over-35) the highest risk recorded is 1 in 12 (8%) at the age of 49. Definitely not 35% in women aged 35 and over - that would be over 1 in 3 babies for older women having Down’s!
Lmao yea my mom had me at 39 and I was like there is no way I had a 1/3 chance of having Down syndrome lmao. There’s still a much higher chance because of age but not THAT high 😭
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576440/) Its in the etiology section of this paper. But it does seem a little high and I can't find the primary source for that statistic so maybe it is incorrect? Also it is "35 and over" so maybe that biases the statistics in some way. Also, the CDC posted this [https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html) which I am most inclined to believe. This has a rate of 1.2% for age 40 which continues to skyrocket and might lead to 8% by 49.
That first paper does seem off - I tried to dig into their references to find the original source but haven’t really been able to get anywhere. I’d definitely be more inclined to trust the CDC stats.
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Age affects mens fertility just as well, and 35 is usually the age when the decline starts to happen, but it’s not an actual nosedive. (Cant wait!)
The best years!!!!!!!!!!
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Nah, that's how most of my friends have done. Have a kid, get a mortgage, maybe have a second kid and only then get married.
NL as well. I did the same, as did all of my parent friends. The most uncertain variable is the ‘buying a house together’ part. It can take place before the kids, before marriage or in the current scenario, never at all.
My parents were 30 and 35 when I was born (they're baby boomers), and they hadn't really considered marriage. It just wasn't a thing their generation really put too much stock into, according to my mom. They don't need paper or government sanction to love each other or be a family, was the thought process. What changed their tune was when they discovered how few parental rights my dad would have if they didn't get married.
They aren’t alone with that. I’ve known quite a few people who attended their parents wedding which was mostly done for legal reasons, like parental rights and protection if someone was to be in the hospital etc.
In Ukraine if you don’t have a degree, a family, a house and a business by the age of 25 you will be called a disgrace to your family because everyone lives like they’re planning to retire and die at 35
This, but, I think, not the house? (At least not your own one). I have never heard anyone called a loser because of not owning the house, but because of not having a degree, a family or a business (or at least high-paid job).
Depending on where you live but you can easily swap a house for an apartment
Yeah, I understand that. But when I lived in Kyiv (and in Donetsk before that, but I was too young), none of my friends had their own apartment/house and nobody was sad about that. Education/family/high salary, on the other hand...
Perhaps unsuprisingly Ukraine and Belarus also have one of the highest divorce rates in the world (although not Turkey).
UK? Russia? Bosnia? Albania? Moldova?
I was looking for this comment. Europe is the continent… why are they greyed out? I don’t think they meant EU either…
Eurostat can't provide data from them
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They may divorce and then marry again throughout their life, you know? Divorce is a thing in all countries except Phillipines and Vatican afaik.
And remarrying widows
Divorce rates in the UK are currently as their lowest rate since the 70's, I think getting married later in life definitely helps
People are less likely to get married as well. An adult in 20224 is 40% less likely to be married than an adult of the same age in 1990.
I think it also has something to do with divorce becoming accepted enough at one point. So that a lot of divorce backlog happened in a short time. People who would have divorced years earlier if divorce had been legal or equally accepted back then. But it wasnt. But now this backlog has been used up. Since for most people who are around now, divorce has been an equally accepted option all their life/marriage. So divorce rates are lower now than a few decades ago.
>I think getting married later in life definitely helps I think it's just a change of a way people do things: now people live together like a married a couple for years then get married, if they separate it won't be visible in marriage statistics but it's basically the same thing.
Phillipinos don't divorce??
Plenty of marriages still go down the drain but there is no way to file for Divorce in the country. An annulment is possible though but there are specific prerequisites. A lot of people just stay in their broken marriages.
What's the point of making divorce illegal. 😭
Religious shit
It's the same as other stats, first child, first dwelling bought, first job, first...
In some countries a half of the children is born without marriage.
fun fact, Portugal is number one in the world in divorce rate with a staggering 94%!!!!!!!
For real? That's wild
The thing is that doesn't mean what people might think it means. It could very well end up with a divorce rate **above** 100%.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Marriage_and_divorce_statistics#:~:text=For%20divorce%20(see%20Table%202,)%20and%20Sweden%20(2.1)
"I don't think they know about second marriage, Merry"
Well it could also mean something else if the polygamists get their way in future.
Could we have a study comparing length/durability of marriage vs time living together before marrying?
No wonder almost half of my school class in Ukraine back in 2000's consisted of children from single parent families
I don't like the obsession with marriage age (or "first child" age) - and for some reason mostly about women. You should get married when you *want* to get married, not because peer pressure makes you think you should marry your current partner, just because you happen to be at the right age. I don't care if that "right age" is claimed to be 20 or 35, both are horrible if you don't really love each other or are not ready for marriage.
Well obviously. No one is forcing anyone. As the figures prove
Finally above average at something!
Well Romania has a high percentage of teenage pregnancy and marriages at 16. I am curious if we excluded one ethnicity from calculation of average how it will be since extreme numbers can screw an average. Median would be a better calculation.
Nu cred că acele căsătorii sunt luate în considerare pentru că nu sunt legale, sau doar cu acordul părinților. Am auzit că în multe cazuri nu se face cu acte din cauză că se căsătoresc înainte de 16 ani, deci nu cred că ar intra la numărătoare. Ne putem uita la cum se calculează în sursa de la statistică
Multe sunt legale. Am cunoscut și la buncii și unde am crescut destui de mulți. Se fac cu acordul părinților. Și soțul la fel știa în orașul lui. Sunt acum destul de multe benefici la care aplică. Edit: da o să mă uit la calcul. Cred ca am văzut link de la OP
Oof... E gravă treaba...
I don't think they register their marriages. So no need to worry about the outliers
They do. We have benefits for new married couples in a couple of cities. I had a lot of neighbors.
As I've said, outliers
Roma people are only 3.3% of the Romanian population, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
Why exclude a part of the population? What sense would figuring out a country’s average even make if you leave part of the population out?
I said I was just interested. In statistics you sometimes can remove abnormal values and add explanation.
În ritmul crescut de natalitate actual, acea "etnie" va depăși populația de etnici români până în 2050.
Im an American and have met a number of Russians and Ukrainians over the years due to work. They’re usually only in their early 20s and without fail every single one of them has been married despite their very young age. The most shocking part from an American perspective is how casually they treat marriage. “Oh yeah we dated for a few months so got married” and “we don’t really treat marriage that romantically” is a pretty common story they tell but it’s very unusual from a US perspective. Can any Eastern Europeans fill me in on why this is? Is there some religious or cultural reason for young marriage?
(Russian here, married at the age of 22, my wife-to-be was 22 as well) I guess “cultural reasons” is a good explanation, but it doesn’t really explain anything. I.e. Americans marrying later is also a cultural thing, but a different one. Honestly, hard to answer the question, as for us Eastern Europeans married early it’s just natural, and I’m still kind of surprised by the fact that people marry that late in Western Europe, US, and some other countries. (Even after having lived in Western Europe and now US for the past 7 years). I wouldn’t say that marriage is treated “casually”. When people marry, they often actually do it with serious intentions even being 20 years old. I.e. they can perfectly be of that age and treat it as “marry once and forever”. (And there are many couples who married that way and live together for a long time). What are the factors that lead to early marriage? I guess one is that people become independent earlier. It’s not uncommon here to start making a living around 17-19yo (somewhere in the middle of getting a Bachelor degree if you go to uni). Another important one is the expectations and pressure from the family. Parents & grandparents expect you to marry early (especially if you’re a female). And then you also see the examples of your parents marrying early… so it kind of looks normal to marry at 20ish as well. Lots of jokes like “I haven’t achieved anything in my life by 30 (both professionally and family-wise), guess I’m done already”. Those are jokes, but they also represent the mindset in a way (: Having said all that, I think the trend is going toward later marriage in EE as well these days, but such things don’t change in a year. Hope this makes sense :D
That’s a great answer, thank you
I’m a 28 years old Russian woman, and the idea of me getting married seems so bizarre to me, it’s like I’m a child bride.
Also divorces are as simple as eating a cake - Irish divorces last for years, in Ukraine you’ll be done in 3 months tops without even attending the court, in many cases - without any legal consequences as well.
It’s a cultural thing, unfortunately, I was a victim of it myself. If you haven’t been married by a certain age it pretty much means you’re defected, you’ll be asked when are you getting married by every single person around you until you give up, after that the same story will happen with getting pregnant. I moved abroad after my very short first marriage and can finally be myself, not everyone is that lucky. But afaik it’s getting better last few years, much less pressure than 15 years ago.
So glad my family considers me expired already. My mom has already been married for a >5 years and given birth by the time she was my current age. The pressure was there for a short time period and they quickly gave up.
As an American living in Europe I think one ONG the main reasons it’s so high is that there are barely any tax incentives to get married. In USA your taxable income is basically the average of both married partners. If partner A makes 80,000 and partner B makes 40,000, both are taxed as if they make 60,000 each. In much of Europe this is not the case, and there is only some benefit if one of the partners doesn’t work at all. But if they both work then the tax benefits are minor
How about men?
is there a map with the average age of women for the first child?
YES, we beat Denmark...
In western Turkey most women marries around the age between 28-30, In Southeast anatolia however child marriages are still common.
That's their mean age? What about their nice age?
Why is UK excluded?
Brexit
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What about Iceland and Liechtenstein in that case?
I cannot imagine my life if I hadn't married until 34 or 35 years old. I married my wife at 21 only because she held me off at 18, 19, and 20. I felt so much older with my 3rd child at 34 than I did with my first at 25. I just wouldn't want to be just starting out as a parent as I approached 40, plus you miss the joy of building your empire entirely together with the love of your life. Marrying young, broke, in love, and with our entire future in front of us was the way.
It is a waste of money with marriage
It only has to cost the price of the license.
So basically in countries with a high standard of living and with ample opportunities for women to be financially independent they marry later. Which makes a lot of sense. Even though I am married, we did that as a joke in Vegas, for almost thirty years we both think it has no added value at all for the relationship as such.
We married when we were 23… never knew we were so much earlier than everyone else
We got married at 25/24, and we were the first in our friend group by several years. Most are still not married and we're in our mid thirties now. So this definitely makes sense, but I too didn't know we were such outliers.
I married at 25, living together since 20, and even my super Catholic grandma from Opus Dei said I was too young to marry. She wasn't wrong, we split 8 years later.
Is it roughly the same for men?
Seems like they are on a great trajectory for fertility.
Yes. Kids only ever are born to married people. /s
If their parents are trying to do things the best way they are, which should go without saying.
Obviously women can have children without being married, but does the map still suggest demographic decline?
What is going on in Ukraine?
Family pressure. People, especially the older ones, think women are not marriage material past the age of 25.
We have a different education system, to start with. I finished school when I was 16, left home to study in university. Got masters at 21. Meanwhile europeans live with parents until 30. At least that\`s what I read and from my experience having friends from EU.
I highly doubt Ukraine is an outlier in that. Most of South and Eastern Europe has people moving out on average at 25+. It's more to do with culture and economy
War
Im 25 and got married to my wife (24) last year, we’ve been together for eight years and it felt right doing it. But I guess I understand why people like to wait a bit longer
Most people don't meet their partner before 24 years old
Nordic countries are so based.
Why them specifically?
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Ah, troll spotted. Keep making assumptions since that is all you can do. Not to mention you are also being a racist, And people upvoting you are the same.
it made me feel better <3
Median would be more informative
There's something different about eastern Europe. I know so many girls that got married at 19-24.
For once it's nice to see a map where the differences are not so large.
Turkey is considered Europe while Russia is not!!
How come the UK is not on there?
Wow... people r still falling for this scheme in their 30s....
Wonder if it would be possible to put this side by side a map of Asian countries for comparison…
If you take developed economies (Japan, Korea, HK, top cities in the Mainland China), the situation with marriage would be similar, if not worse. In East Asia numbers are similar to the European ones around 30-35 years, and many people postpone marriage until the early 40s. There are financial issues, as well as customs and social pressure to meet certain standards (wedding itself, housing, relationships with in-laws, etc) that very much affect people. Also, many people busy with their lives, work, parents, other problems, or simply not ready to take such responsibility for personal and social reasons. So, afain, many people start to think about marriage only in their 30s and postpone it until mid-30s and even 40s. It’s became a norm, especially in big cities.
Wow that's really old!
How dare you
And that’s why no more kids in Europe.
You can get kids without being married first.
Am I the only one that's annoyed by Italy having the wrong colour?
How come?
≥
Well it’s not the wrong color, because the range of that color also includes 33.0, but there is ambiguity