Young people do not get married
Catalans are marrying less and doing so later. Life as a couple is being delayed, as is its formalization. Therefore, marriage is being postponed and statistically declining. Those who do marry end up doing so at an older age, often after a consolidated life together, sometimes even with children. While a few decades ago it was most normal to marry before starting a relationship under the same roof, and to proclaim it with a party, that has not been the case for a long time now. There is much more mobility in partnerships, and relationships are much more open and fluid, and friendships often play a role just as significant, if not more so, than the partner themselves. A youthful lifestyle dominates, without a fixed and firm commitment as a couple, for which a stable cohabitation is not necessary. In many cases, moreover, if there is a stable relationship, it is done without papers or celebration.
There are two main factors that converge in this trend of fewer marriages, both for religious and civil rites: on one hand, there is a change in mentality – the acceptance that nothing lasts forever, a certain carpe diem juvenile attitude, and a rejection of institutionalization – and, on the other hand, economic precariousness due to the rising cost of housing and meager salaries. In more and more cases, couples do not begin to consider the possibility of a formal union until the age of 30, and it takes even longer to value the idea of having children.
Other elements that influence this delay are the lengthening of the period of studies, the slowness in consolidating job stability, the loss of weight of Catholicism, and the fact that there are practically no legal differences between being married or not, as demonstrated, for example, by the royal decree-law on widowhood pensions, which must allow couples with children in common to collect this benefit without the need to be married.
What do the data say, specifically? According to the data that Idescat published this week, in 2024 the number of married Catalans was around 3 million citizens, 10.5% less than 13 years ago (2011 is the only year of the last decade with data on civil status). In contrast, the total population had grown by 6.8% in the same period. Furthermore: married people make up 43.9% of the population over 16 years old, a percentage that is not much higher than single people, who represent 34.8%. In fact, the number of single people has grown by almost 40% in these same 13 years. This does not mean, however, that in the single category there are no people who live as a couple: they are those who do not appear in any registry, precisely because they have not wanted to formalize their union, not even as a domestic partnership. Therefore, in the eyes of civil law, they are not coupled people. In any case, if before there were 1.2 million more married people than single people, now the difference is only 600,000 people.
The fact that there are fewer marriages and that they occur later – in 2011, 416,000 young people between 20 and 34 years old were married, while in 2024 they did not reach 200,000 – is very linked to another very accentuated particularity in Catalan society: the low birth rate. A whole other issue that also has to do with residential and salary precariousness and the change in mentality.
