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Press release

Resident population by marital status

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At January 1st 2018 the resident population in Italy is equal to 60 million 484 thousand. The age structure has strongly aged: 13.4% of the population only is under 15, 64.1% are aged between 15 and 64 and 22.6% are 65 years and older. The mean age is 45.2 years. At January 1st 2018, in the 15-64 age group, married and unmarried men are almost equivalent (respectively 49.0% and 47.7% of the total population). For women of the same age, the prevalence of married is confirmed (55.0%), followed by unmarried women (almost 39% of the total).

The comparison between the 1991 Census and 2018 presents the deep changes that occurred: we observe a strong decrease in married couples (3 million and 843 thousand in total) both for men and women aged 15-64 years. An increase in unmarried individuals (3 million and 90 thousand) and the divorced individuals (over 972 thousand) is registered.

The decline and postponement of the nuptiality occurred for over forty years, partly balanced by the growth of unmarried couples, has led to a collapse of married couples, between 1991 and 2018, above all in the 25-34 age group (from 51.5% to 19.1% for men and from 69.5% to 34.3% for women). At the same time, unmarried men and unmarried women grow from 48.1% to 80.6% for men and from 29.2% to 64.9% for women. At 45-54 years almost a quarter of men has never married while almost 18% of women are unmarried.

Divorced people increase fourfold in all age groups: compared to 1991, going from around 376 thousand to over 1 million and 671 thousand.

Referring to the elderly people, the effects of the increase in survival and the decrease of disadvantage of men in old age are registered. Whereas at the 1991 Census the percentage of widowed women was higher than married ones (50.5% compared to 37.4%), at January 1st 2018 married women (47.7%) overpassed widowed women (41.9%). Therefore it is more frequent for women to live the old age by living as a couple.

Considering both the same-sex civil unions constituted in Italy and the registration of same-sex civil unions constituted abroad, at January 1st 2018 the resident individuals who have a same sex civil partner amount to about 13.3 thousand, 0.02% of the resident population (68.3% are male).

The mean age of male same sex civil partners is 49.5 years and 45.9 years for females; they live mainly in the Northern regions (56.8%) and in the Centre (31.5%). In Italy, from July 2016 to December 31st 2017, 6,712 same-sex civil unions have been constituted (2,336 in the second half of 2016 and 4,376 in 2017). Couples of men are prevalent (4,682 unions, equal to 69.8% of the total).

Civil unions are more frequent in the cities: 35.4% of them occurred in the 14 metropolitan cities, almost a quarter has been constituted in Milan, Rome or Turin.

infografica
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For information

Marco Battaglini
Ph. +39 06 4673.7341
battagli@istat.it

Giorgia Capacci
Ph. +39 06 4673.7393
gcapacci@istat.it

Maura Simone
Ph. +39 06 4673.7588
simone@istat.it

Reference period: Year 2018

Date of Issue: 06 September 2018

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