The number of marriages is growing, the Australian Bureau of Statistics says, but the overall marriage rate is down and church weddings continue to decline as a proportion. Australians increasingly want to tie the knot, News.com.au reports.
Marriage reached its lowest ebb in 2001, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show.
But since then marriage has enjoyed a second honeymoon in terms of numbers.
Other similar growing trends include people living together before marriage and a preference for civil celebrants, with 63 percent of couples choosing a civil celebrant to officiate their marriage, compared to 20 years ago when almost 60 percent of marriages conducted were by a religious minister.
However, the marriage rate per 1,000 population has decreased in the last 20 years.
ABS researcher Tara Pritchard today said the total number of Australians getting married each year has grown steadily since only 103,130 couples took the plunge in 2001.
New ABS figures show more than 116,000 marriages were registered in Australia during 2007, the highest number of marriages registered in a single year since 1990.
Over the past 20 years, couples have also been delaying the age at which they marry.
In 2007, the median age at first time marriage was 29.6 years for males and 27.6 years for females, compared to 26.1 years and 24.0 years in 1989.
The figures also show that the proportion of couples who chose to live together prior to marriage grew to 76.8 percent.
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(Source: CN)