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Release Date :
Reference Number :
330

 

Explanatory Notes

The data on marriages presented in this special release were obtained from the second copy of the marriage certificates that were registered at the Office of the City/Municipal Civil Registrars all throughout the country and forwarded to the National Statistics Office. Figures presented herein include only those marriages which occurred in 2005 and were registered from January 2005 to March 2006. Figures were not adjusted for underregistration.

 

Registered marriages decline further; crude marriage rate is 6.2

A total of 518,595 marriages were reported in 2005, a decrease of 10.9 percent from previous year’s 582,281. Crude marriage rate (CMR) was computed at 6.2 per 1,000 midyear population. Compared with 2004 figures, most regions showed declines in reported marriages, except Western Visayas and Northern Mindanao which increased by 5.6 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively.

Just like in the previous years, the National Capital Region reported the highest number of marriages with 82,830 or 16.0 percent of the total. The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), on the other hand, had the least with only 2,564 or 0.5 percent of total marriages.

CMR was highest in Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon (both with 7.8) while the lowest was posted in ARMM (0.8 per thousand midyear population). Refer to Table 1.

May is back on top as most preferred month for marriage

In 2005, May bounced back as the most preferred month for marrying with 60,097 or 11.6 percent of total registered marriages. This month had a daily average of 1,939 occurrences, or a daily index of 136.4 marriages. January came in second with 57,217 marriages or an average of 1,846 per day, followed by December (56,056). Preceding year’s topnotcher (April) dropped to fourth spot in 2005.

The least number of marriages occurred in November with 27,022 (5.2%). See Table 2.

Most women marry at ages 20-24 years; men at 25-29 years

Generally, women married at earlier ages than men. Approximately four in every ten (38.6 percent or 200,210) recorded marriages in 2005 involved women aged 20-24 years. About one third (33.9 percent or 175,647) of their male counterparts, mean-while, married at ages 25 to 29 years. The median age of marrying for brides and grooms was 24.7 years and 27.5 years, respectively.

It was also observed that there were more teenage brides (69,335) than teenage grooms (15,786). In contrast, more men aged 50 years and over got married compared with women in the same age group - 18,116 versus 7,736. Refer to Table 3.

Most couples prefer civil wedding

By type of ceremony (Table 4), marriages performed under civil rites showed the largest proportion with 232,520 or 44.8 percent of the total. Ranked second was marriages solemnized under Roman Catholic rites (197,413 or 38.1 percent). The remaining percentage was solemnized under other religious rites (84,522 or 16.3%), Muslim rites (2,862 or 0.6%), and tribal rites (1,129 or 0.2%).

Nearly all marrying couples are single

Table 5 shows that nearly a hundred percent (99.2% or 514,389 and 97.5% or 505,595) of brides and grooms respectively were single. Marriages which involved couples who were both single numbered 503,605 or 97.1 percent.

Meanwhile, remarriage was more common among males (12,546 or 2.4 percent) than females (4,001 or 0.8 percent). Of the total males who remarried, 108 were reported as already/still married. This can be attributed to the fact that some Muslim men are allowed to have multiple wives at the same time. Similarly, it is acceptable for some men belonging to some indigenous tribes to have several wives in accordance with their laws, customs and traditions, practices, and rites.

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