The Covid crisis has certainly changed the way we tie the knot today.  But even before the pandemic upended everything weddings, and marriage, were undergoing subtle changes from one year to the next.  Go back to the time your grandparents wed, or just to the time when you were a twinkle in your parent’s eye, and you’ll discover just how different it all was not so long ago.  The statistics tell a remarkable story.

More marriages and more haste

In 1970 out of every 1,000 unmarried adult women living in England and Wales in (single, divorced or widowed) 60 got hitched during the year.  Fast forward to 2017 and the number dropped to just 21.

What’s more, in 1970 the average age women got married for the first time was 21, to men who were two years older.  By 2017 it had risen to 30 for women and 31 for men.

An interesting slant on this is the fact that in 1970 a third of all brides gave birth less than eight months after the ceremony – do the maths!  In those days giving birth as an unmarried mother was severely frowned upon but by 2016 it was almost the norm - 48% of English and Welsh babies were born to unmarried mothers in 2016, up from 8% in 1970.

Attitudes have changed

NatCen Social Research, which runs annual surveys, found that in 1983 42% of Britons thought sex before marriage was fine.  By 2016 this had climbed to 75%.  However, we’ve become less liberal in another way - all Britons, especially young ones, now take a more critical view of affairs.  As marriage becomes less common it is also being seen as more precious.

For richer, for poorer

Marriage as a whole may be losing popularity but the picture is nuanced.  According to the Labour Force Survey in the first quarter of 2017, 65% of top professional adults in Britain were married.  However, amongst those in more routine jobs the figure was just 44%.  Amongst the unemployed and those who had never worked the proportion was even lower, at 40%.

The class difference is even more marked when you look at women with young children. The Marriage Foundation charity calculates that 87% of women in the highest-earning quintile with children under five are married.  But in the lowest earning quintile the number is just 24%.

While marriage is favoured by well-off people it’s also popular with some ethnic minorities, especially immigrants and the offspring of immigrants from countries such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Somalia, which have strong marriage cultures.

Harrow has the lowest proportion of births outside marriage (a mere 20%), reflecting the fact it is a middle-class London suburb where less than one-third of the population is white British.   At the other end of the scale comes Knowsley, a poor suburb of Liverpool where 19 out of 20 people are white Britons – here the rate is 75%.

Split decisions declining

Marriages are becoming more resilient.  Among those who tied the knot in 1996, 11% had split up by the fifth year of marriage and 25% by the tenth.   But skip a decade and among those who wed in 2006, 8% had split by their fifth year and 20% by their tenth year.  This trend to longer lasting marriages continues.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world

It’s a similar picture.  Across Europe, with the exception of Belgium, highly educated women are less likely to have children outside marriage.  In America the better educated are more likely to be in wedlock than the rest and marriage rates are now higher among women with PhDs than among women with bachelor’s degrees.  

American men seem to live quite uncomplicated personal lives - at the age of 45 those with university education tend to be hitched (88% of them).  About 75% of these are still with their first wife.  Men who did not finish high school are less likely to have married and, if they have, more likely to have divorced.

Men behaving less badly

Married women nagging their husbands to “do more about the house” is a familiar refrain.  However, a recent study from Oxford University shows that although women still do more housework than men the gap has narrowed everywhere.   In 1974 British women spent 172 more hours a year cleaning, cooking and laundering than men. 

By 2005 the men were doing more of their share - women were putting in only 74 hours more than their partners.  In America a similar trend has been observed - the difference between the time married working women and men spent doing housework each day fell from 38 to 28 minutes between 2003-06 and 2011-15.

What more do you need to know?

So, statistically speaking, you now understand a lot more about the subject of marriage and the latest social and economic trends.  It won’t help you with your planning for the big day but you’ll be able to impress your other half, family and friends with your amazing knowledge!  If there’s anything else we can help you with, wedding-wise, just get in touch – the team here are really well informed.