Marriage rates across much of Europe fall to record lows

Marriage rates have fallen dramatically in major European countries over the past decade as austerity, generational crisis and apathy towards the institution deter young people from tying the knot.

The number of weddings has fallen to record lows in France and Spain and has tumbled in other Catholic countries such as Italy, Ireland, Poland and Portugal, according to national and European data. But people have also fallen out of love with marriage in countries as varied as Greece, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands and Britain. Only in parts of Scandinavia, the Baltic republics and Germany is the institution retaining its allure.

In Italy there were fewer than 200,000 marriages last year, the lowest number since the first world war. Numbers have fallen by 24 per cent in the past decade and halved since 1965. Preliminary data indicated that the rate of marriages in Italy last year was 3.3 per 1,000 citizens, said Istat (Italy's National Institute of Statistics), compared with 4.6 in 2003. It was, it said, "the lowest in modern history". "There are cultural and economic causes for this phenomenon," said the institute's chairman, Antonio Golini. "The cultural causes are that marriage has become less important from a religious and civil point of view, because many young people live together without marrying.

"But there are also economic causes because marriage means having a celebration and often this celebration is big and costs a lot."

Economic crisis not only means people wanting to save money on a party. A study this year found that almost half of people aged 18-30 in Europe still live with their parents, prevented from moving out by a lack of jobs, large debts and rising property costs. Experts say these factors are also hitting birth rates.

"The lack of stable jobs and absence of credit have become disincentives to forming a family," said Teresa Castro-Martin, professor of research in the department of population studies at the CSIC, a government research institute in Spain.