Marriage, divorce rates slide again in 2016

The number of marriages entered into in 2016 went down slightly from the previous year, according to Statistics Finland's data on population changes.

In 2016, a total of 24,464 marriages were entered into, which was 244 fewer than in the previous year. The marriage rate and the number of couples who have entered into marriage and those who could marry have all been on a continued slide since 2008.

In 2016, the marriage rate declined among the under-40 people compared with the previous year, while it was slightly better among the elderly.

The rise in the average age of women and men entering into their first marriage continued in 2016. The average age of women who married increased by 0.2 years and that of men by 0.3 years from 2015.

The average age of women entering into their first marriage was 31.4 years and that of men was 33.7 years. The average age of women entering into their second marriage was 44.8 years, with 47.6 years for men.

The number and relative share of first marriages went down from the year before, while the number of remarriages was higher than in 2015. However, the annual changes were so small that the first marriages still accounted for three-quarters of all marriages entered into last year. The relative share has remained at the same level throughout the early 2000s. Twenty-one per cent of all marriages contracted were second marriages, and close on four per cent were third marriages.

Meanwhile, in 2016, a total of 13,541 marriages ended in divorce, which are 398 less than one year ago. The number of divorces has increased and decreased in alternate years since 2012. The divorce rate, the number of divorces in relation to married persons, has remained the same for over 20 years. Changes by age in the divorce rate were minor compared with that in the previous year.

The average age of women in their first marriage was 40.5 years when their marriages ended in divorce. The corresponding average age of men was 42.8 in 2016. The average age of women at the time of divorce rose from the year before by one-tenth, but that of men remained unchanged. The average age of either sex has not had a clearly rising or falling trend of divorce in the last years.

According to the divorce rate in 2016, first marriages end in divorce with a probability of 39 per cent. The drop in the divorce rate from the previous year was so small that the probability of first marriages to end in divorce stays at the same level as in the previous years. The median for the duration of first marriages ending in divorce was 10 years as in the year before.

Sixty-nine per cent of the marriages that ended in divorce in 2016 were first marriages for both spouses. The share increased by one percentage point from 2015. In 1990, the corresponding percentage was 80. Nine per cent of the marriages ending in divorce were second marriages for both the spouses in last year, which in 2015 was 11 per cent.