Marriage in Greece: Women are starting to postpone it, while more and more are not getting married

From 1980 onwards, there have been changes in behavior regarding marriage in Greece. In particular, women are starting to postpone it, while more and more are not getting married. These developments also affect their fertility, to the extent that the birth of the first child remains closely linked to the conclusion of the first marriage in our country. These are data mentioned in the context of the Research Program “Demographic Projects in Research and Practice in Greece” financed by the Hellenic Research and Innovation Foundation (HELIIDEK) in the context of the Action “1st Announcement of research projects EL. I.E.K. for the support of faculty members and researchers and the supply of research equipment of great value”. The author of the research is George KontogiannisPhD in Demography, University of Thessaly, post-doctoral researcher, Research Program (ELIDEK) “Demographic Projects in Research and Practice”.

According to the data of the research, since 1980 women start to marry less (the synthetic indicators presented below will allow a more detailed analysis of marriage), while the first marriages in any year from 1980 onwards do not exceed 76 thousand. of 1979. During the 1980s first marriages are less than 56,000 per year, in the 1990s they do not exceed 53,000 and from 2016 onwards they do not exceed 40,000, while in 2020 (the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic ) are less than 26 thousand. Regarding the total number of marriages in 1979 we have 79 thousand, in the 1980s they do not exceed 71 thousand. per year, in the 1990s 63 thousand, in the next decade 59 thousand, while from 2012 onwards they are less than 50 thousand. In 2020 only 30 thousand are recorded and in 2021 (non-leap year, second year of pandemic) 39 thousand..

The political weddings, according to the same data, up until the mid-2000s, they constituted only 1/4 of the marriages performed annually. The tendency of couples to choose civil marriage subsequently intensified, with the result that they now constitute 45-50% of the total in the period 2011-2019. In 2020, it seems that the pandemic, according to the research, strongly influenced the choice of people (about 60% of weddings were political), as the restrictions imposed by the state and related to the number of guests, the distances between them, etc. ., but also the fear of transmission of the virus, pushed many more couples than usual to a type of wedding held in front of fewer guests. Finally, while in the first years after its establishment a limited number of people choose it Cohabitation Agreement, since 2014 the number of Covenants has been increasing rapidly (only 593 Accords in 2013, 1,590 in 2014, 4,909 in 2017, 9,021 in 2020 and 11,429 in 2021). It therefore appears that while the pandemic has discouraged many couples from getting married in 2020 and 2021, it has not been a deterrent to entering into a Cohabitation Agreement.

Regarding the average age at first marriage, it is indicative that it steadily decreases from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1970s (25.4 years in 1956, but 23.4 years in the five-year period 1978-1982). Since the beginning of the 1980s, however, the average age has been increasing continuously (for almost 4 decades), with the result that in the two years 2019-2020 women will marry for the first time in our country at the age of 30.5, which affects the number of the offspring they will have, as the chances of conceiving and having children decrease rapidly after the age of 35 (remember that marriage and having offspring are still strongly linked in our country).

As can be seen from the same data of the above research, the comparison of the course of marriage in our country with that of other European countries is of particular interest. In particular, in Northern and Western Europe in the first seven decades of the 20th century there is a significant decrease in the percentage of unmarried women (especially in the period 1945-1965), but the trends are reversed from the mid-1960s and the marriage rate progressively declines, the average age at marriage is rising rapidly, fewer and fewer marriages are becoming more fragile and out-of-wedlock births are increasing rapidly.

In his statements to the Athenian – Macedonian News Agency, Mr. Kontogiannis emphasizes: “Attitudes, perceptions and attitudes regarding marriage have been changing since 1980 in Greece. Since then women are starting to postpone marriage, while more and more are not getting married. These changes started much earlier in Northern and Western Europe. However, although with a delay, with some particularities they are gradually arriving in our country as well. During the 21st century, marriage is no longer “universal”, i.e. not for the vast majority of women (it is worth noting that at least 90 out of 100 women born in the 1940s and 1950s had a first marriage to their 50s, but it appears that at most 75 out of 100 women will enter into a first marriage among those born from 1980 onwards). At the same time, more and more couples are ending their marriage, while more and more of them are choosing civil marriage and cohabitation instead of religious marriage. Therefore, both cohabitation outside of marriage (either in the form of a Cohabitation Agreement or outside of any formalized relationship) and childbearing outside of marriage, which remain at very low levels in Greece throughout the 20th century, are gradually increasing. Therefore, family structures are increasingly different from those of the past in our country, and the small-sized nuclear family resulting from marriage continues to prevail, while new family patterns are emerging, requiring new approaches to shaping demographic and social politicians”.

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