According to the latest report 'Transformation and Crisis of the Marital
Institution in Spain,' compiled by the CEU
Demographic Observatory (using data from the INE and Eurostat), affiliated
with the Center for Studies, Training, and Social Analysis (CEU-CEFAS), around 50% of young and middle-aged
Spaniards would never marry, and a similar percentage of Spanish marriages end
in divorce. This data is coupled with the collapse of marriage, especially
by the Church, with only 20% or fewer
weddings currently being Catholic services, compared to 99% in 1976.
As stated in the report, the theoretical
probability of no longer remaining single before the age of 50 has fallen from
close to 100% in 1976 to only 43% for
men and 47% for women in 2019. The vast majority of Spaniards used to marry
before the age of 30 (85% of men and 90% of women); compared to a current
figure of less than 20% (8% for men and 14% for women, respectively, in 2022).
It is also worth noting that the average age
on entering into a first marriage has risen by more than 10 years from 1976 to
2022, with Spaniards being the second
oldest Europeans to marry for the first time, surpassed only by the Swedish.
The decline in the marriage rate per thousand
inhabitants, combined with high divorce rates, has a very negative impact on
the fertility rate. Married couples in Spain and other countries have more
children than unmarried couples or single parents.
Another highly damaging effect of low marriage
rates and high divorce rates is the large number of minors affected by family
breakdown: over 10% of babies
born in Spain will be raised by a single parent. The number of Spanish
children and young people being raised in this way is close to 2 million, and
single-parent households now account for around 20% of households with
children. In 3.6% of births in 2022, no father is listed. In 5% of these cases,
the father lives in a different municipality within the same province, and in
1.9%, the father lives in a different province from the mother. In total, more
than 10% of Spanish babies do not live with their father from birth, to which
should be added the cases in which the father lives in a different household in
the same municipality, for which there is no available data.
The percentage of babies born to married
mothers has also plummeted. Babies born to unmarried Spanish mothers accounted
for 53% in 2022, compared to just 2% in 1976.
Finally, marriages between people of the same
sex, although very much in the minority, are an increasing percentage of total
marriages, rising from just over 1.6% of
those held in 2007 to 3.4% in 2022. By gender, 3.8% of women who married in
2022 did so with another woman, compared to 3.2% of men. This higher share of
same-sex marriages is mainly due to the increase in their number among
residents in Spain (3,147 in 2007 and 6,214 in 2022) but also because there are
fewer heterosexual marriages (199,160 in 2007 and 172,410 in 2022).