More marriages in 1997 than in any of the last 20 years

In 1997 23,800 couples got married. That is 650 more than in 1996 and the highest number that has been registered since 1977. The number of marriages was lowest in the years 1991 and 1993, when it varied between 19,300 and 19,900.

Among unmarried persons under 30, the marriage rate continues to decline. For women of age 20-24, this rate has dropped to only a seventh of what it was in the latter half of the 1960s and half of what it was ten years ago. Among women over 29 and men over 34 the marriage rate is increasing.

The mean ages of a bride and groom who marry for the first time are 28.3 and 30.8 respectively, an increase of three years during the last ten years. For those who married again the mean ages were 41.1 for women and 44.9 for men.

Registered Partnerships

In 1997 155 registered partnerships were entered into. 95 of them were between two men and 60 were between two women. The number decreased somewhat in the first years after the introduction of the Act permitting registered partnerships in 1993, but it is now back up to the same level as in 1993 again. In over half of the partnerships, either both partners or the oldest partner resided in Oslo.

New Statistics
Population Statistics. Marriages and registered partnerships, 1997.
The statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and Official Statistics of Norway (NOS), Population Statistics: Survey. For more information and e-mail contact: kirsten.enger.dybendal@ssb.no, tel. +47 62 82 52 96 or trude.jakobsen@ssb.no, tel. +47 62 88 51 29. Tables can be found in the Statistical Annex on pages 4-7.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 39, 1998