Brazilians are getting married at increasingly older ages, according to the new survey by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). Data released on Wednesday (27) shows that the country recorded 970,000 marriages in 2022, which represents a 4% increase in unions compared to 2021.
Since 2015, Brazil has been recording a decrease in the number of marriages. The pace of decline increased in 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, when the country saw the largest drop compared to the previous year (-25%) —from over 1 million marriages in 2019, the country dropped to 700,000 in 2020. In 2021, the number of unions rose to 932,000 before reaching 970,000 in 2022. However, according to IBGE, the number of marriages is still below the annual average from 2015 to 2019, of 1.07 million unions.
The data include marriages of heterosexual and homosexual couples. Compared to 2021, there was a 19.8% increase in same-sex civil marriages —from 9,202 unions to 11,022. The increase was greater among male couples (21.9%) than among female couples (18.4%). The average age among men who married someone of the same sex was 34.3 years, compared to 32.7 years among women. In the case of marriages between people of different sexes, the average age was 31.5 years for men, compared to 29.1 years for women.
The legal marriage rate in Brazil reached 5.9 in 2022. This means that for every 1,000 inhabitants aged 15 or older, 5.9 married in 2022. This number reached 12.2 in 1980, dropped to 6.7 in 2010, and to 4.5 in 2020.