Marriages down by 4% in 2023

Marriages down by 4% in 2023

Population

18 June 2024

In 2023, 46,564 marriages were registered in Belgium, i.e. a decrease of 4% compared to the previous year. While the northern and southern regions followed the national trend (-4.3% in Flanders and -4.4% in Wallonia), the Brussels-Capital Region was fairly stable (+0.4%).

This brings us closer to the values observed before the pandemic, when we were fluctuating between 44,000 and 45,000 marriages a year in Belgium.

Diversity of marriages

While common residence is a sine qua non for entering legal cohabitation, this is not the case for marriage. In fact, 12.3% of spouses do not live in the same region at the time of their union.

Logically, it is in Belgium that marriages most often take place (90.2% of unions). This means that in 9.8% of cases, the bride and groom - at least one of whom lives in Belgium - marry abroad.

The countries where most marriages take place, other than our country, are, in order: Morocco, Romania, Turkey, France and Poland.

At the time of their first marriage, partners are now 35.4 years old (1^st spouse) and 33.2 years old (2^nd spouse)^[1].

An anniversary year for same-sex marriage in Belgium

2023 marks the 20^th anniversary of the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Belgium. Belgium was the second country, after the Netherlands in 2001, to allow same-sex marriages throughout its territory. Since 2003, the number of such marriages has been rising slowly and accounted in 2023 for 3% of marital unions.

Marriages according to the spouses' gender 2003-2023

^[1] The first partner is the man or the oldest spouse for same-sex couples; the second partner is the woman or the youngest spouse for same-sex couples.