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Marriage in the UK - Facts and Figures

Marriage in the UK - Facts and Figures

6^th August 2026

Fewer couples in the United Kingdom are marrying, and they marry later, yet their marriages are holding. Government and Parliament have made marriage easier to leave, and have stopped counting what its loss costs children. This page is the record of UK marriage statistics: how many people marry, who is married now, at what age, in what kind of ceremony, and how cohabitation and divorce have moved, covering every part of the United Kingdom. It now includes the divorce figures the Office for National Statistics published on 23 September 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2024and2025. What marriage does for children, health and household finances is a different question, answered at https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/why-marriage-matters.

In brief: In 2023, England and Wales registered 216,901 marriages between a man and a woman, 46 per cent fewer than 50 years earlier. With same-sex weddings, the total was 224,402 (ONS marriages workbook, Table 1a, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) The marriage rate for women aged 20 to 24 has fallen 97 per cent since 1971, and for men of the same age the fall is 98 per cent (from the same workbook, Table 5a.)

In England and Wales, under half of adults are now in a marriage between a man and a woman - 49.8 per cent in 2025 (Office for National Statistics, Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, 31 July 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationestimatesbymaritalstatusandlivingarrangements/2025.) Religious ceremonies, which were half of all weddings in 1992, were 15 per cent of the total by 2023 - around one wedding in seven. The median age at marriage is among the highest ever recorded - 34.8 for men and 33.0 for women marrying someone of the opposite sex in 2023 (Office for National Statistics, marriages workbook, Tables 1b and 6a, 18 November 2025, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) Across the UK, unmarried cohabiting-couple families have grown since 1996 to 3.5 million in 2025 (Office for National Statistics, Families and households in the UK, Table 1, 17 April 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/datasets/familiesandhouseholdsfamiliesandhouseholds.)

But most marriages in England and Wales don't end in divorce. More than eight in ten couples who married in 2015 - 83.7 per cent - had not divorced by their tenth anniversary (ONS divorce bulletin, 23 September 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2024and2025.) Large majorities of the unmarried young in a relationship say they want to marry (Marriage Foundation, May 2021, at https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/tiktok-generation-say-i-want-to-get-married/.) And the share of babies born inside marriage or civil partnership in England and Wales, having fallen every decade since 1950 to a low of 48.6 per cent in 2022, has risen three years running to 53.2 per cent in 2025 (ONS registration workbook, Table 6, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsinenglandandwalesbirthregistrations/2025/2025birthregistrations.xlsx.)

Yet since April 2022, one spouse alone can end a marriage in England and Wales without giving any reason (Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, section 1, at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/11/section/1.) Three divorces in four now go that way - 74.3 per cent of those granted under the new law in 2025 (ONS divorce bulletin, 23 September 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2024and2025.) Nobody in England and Wales can now say how many children see their parents divorce. The Government's count stops at 2014, and since 2017 its own divorce application hasn't recorded them (ONS user guide to divorce statistics, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/methodologies/userguidetodivorcestatistics.)

Here are the official statistics for every part of the United Kingdom, each with its source. They are the story of the institution that the Coalition for Marriage exists to champion - marriage, the voluntary, exclusive, lifelong union of one man and one woman, the gold standard for families and society.

HOW MANY MARRIAGES - AND THE SCALE OF THE FALL

Marriages between a man and a woman in England and Wales have fallen by 46 per cent in 50 years, from 400,435 in 1973 to 216,901 in 2023 (ONS marriages workbook, Table 1a, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) The Office for National Statistics (ONS) bulletin Marriages and civil partnerships in England and Wales: 2023, released on 18 November 2025, records 231,949 marriages and civil partnerships formed in 2023 - an 8.6 per cent fall on 2022 (at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2023.) Marriages between a man and a woman made up 216,901 of them, 93.5 per cent of all legal partnerships formed. Take away the 7,547 civil partnerships, 6,179 of them opposite-sex and 1,368 same-sex, and 224,402 marriages remain, 7,501 of them same-sex. The full bulletin is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2023.

The rates tell the story more sharply than the raw counts. In 2023 there were 18.1 marriages between a man and a woman per 1,000 unmarried men and 16.4 per 1,000 unmarried women - each down by around a tenth on 2022 alone, and back on the long downward trend that the pandemic years interrupted. The ONS bulletin gives the series, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2023. The long view is worse. Working from the ONS records back to 1862, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) notes that the men's marriage rate had never fallen below 47.7 before the 1980s - its First World War floor - and now stands at 18.1 (CSJ, I Do?, February 2026, at https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CSJ-I_Do.pdf.) Among the young the collapse is steeper still. The marriage rate for women aged 20 to 24 has fallen 97 per cent since 1971, from 249.1 per 1,000 unmarried women to 7.1, and for men of the same age by 98 per cent, from 168.5 to 4.1 (ONS marriages workbook, Table 5a, 18 November 2025, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.)

Scotland registered 27,191 marriages in 2025, of which 26,083 were between a man and a woman and 1,108 were same-sex. It also registered 944 civil partnerships, the highest number since 2006, the first full year they were available, and 82 per cent of them were between a man and a woman (National Records of Scotland, tables published on 25 August 2026, at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/adoptions-births-deaths-marriages-and-civil-partnerships-in-scotland-2025-registrar-generals-annual-statistical-tables-of-vital-events/.) Northern Ireland's marriages have fallen for two years running - 8,564 in 2022, then 7,494 in 2023 and 7,251 in 2024. The Registrar General's reports from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are at https://library2.nics.gov.uk/pdf/dof/2023/PDF230105.pdf, https://www.nisra.gov.uk/news/annual-report-registrar-general-2023 and https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/registrar-general-annual-report-2024-marriages. NISRA's quarterly tables count 52 civil partnerships in 2024, at https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/registrar-general-quarterly-tables-quarter-2-2026.

WHO IS MARRIED NOW

The 2021 Census found 46.9 per cent of people aged 16 and over in England and Wales married or in a civil partnership - down from 58.4 per cent in 1991 - while the share who had never married or been in a civil partnership rose from 26.3 to 37.9 per cent. Among people aged 25 to 29 that share was 84.2 per cent, and among those aged 30 to 34, 58.9 per cent. The ONS census analysis is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/articles/marriageandcivilpartnershipstatusenglandandwalescensus2021/2023-02-22. And the ONS's annual estimates, counted differently from the census, show the retreat going on. In 2025, 51.1 per cent of adults aged 18 and over were married or in a civil partnership, down from 52.3 per cent in 2015. Take out civil partnerships (0.9 per cent) and same-sex marriages (0.4 per cent) and marriage between a man and a woman stands at 49.8 per cent - see https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationestimatesbymaritalstatusandlivingarrangements/2025. In Northern Ireland, 45 per cent of those aged 15 and over were married or in a civil partnership at the 2021 Census, down from 50 per cent in 2001. Counting the separated, as the England and Wales figures do, the 2021 share was 49 per cent - see https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpini/irelandandnorthernireland-ajointcensuspublication2021-2022/maritalandcivilpartnershipstatusandhouseholds/.

Faith makes a difference. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh adults are 24 per cent more likely to be married, and 21 per cent less likely to be divorced, than those with no religion - Civitas's analysis of the 2021 Census, at https://www.civitas.org.uk/2023/05/10/who-gets-married-and-who-doesnt-evidence-from-the-2021-census/.

Marriage varies sharply by class too, and the ONS's birth figures show it every year. Among babies born in England and Wales in 2022, 71 per cent of those in the higher managerial and professional class had married parents, against 35 per cent in the routine and semi-routine classes and 20 per cent in the group the classification leaves unassigned (ONS, Births by parents' characteristics: 2022, Worksheet 10, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsbyparentscharacteristics/2022/parentscharacteristics2022.xlsx.) The gap between the first two was 36 percentage points, against 19 points in 1988 - Marriage Foundation, The Marriage Gap, March 2025, at https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/MF-paper-Marriage-gap-March-2025.pdf.

Same-sex marriages are a small share of all marriages. In 2023 there were 7,501 same-sex marriages in England and Wales, 3.3 per cent of all marriages, of which 59.8 per cent were between two women and 40.2 per cent between two men (ONS bulletin and marriages workbook, Tables 1a and 1c, 18 November 2025, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2023 and https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) At the 2021 Census, 134,000 people in England and Wales were recorded as married to a same-sex spouse and 67,000 as in a same-sex civil partnership, numbers the ONS says are still inflated (ONS census analysis, 22 February 2023, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/articles/marriageandcivilpartnershipstatusenglandandwalescensus2021/2023-02-22.) Those are counts of people, not of couples - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/householdandresidentcharacteristicsenglandandwales/census2021. In Northern Ireland, where same-sex marriage became legal on 13 January 2020, there were 158 in that first year, 396 in 2021, 266 in 2022, 318 in 2023 and 255 in 2024. Up to 2023, 401 of them were civil partnerships converted into marriages - https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/registrar-general-annual-report-2024-marriages.

OLDER AT THE ALTAR

Marriage by 25 has almost disappeared. In England and Wales, of those born in 1945, 62.5 per cent of men and 81.8 per cent of women had married by their 25th birthday, against 2.1 and 3.9 per cent of those born in 1999 (ONS marriages workbook, Tables 14a and 14b, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) Each generation born since the 1960s has married later than the one before. By the age of 31, 73 per cent of women born in 1963 had married, against 51 per cent of those born in 1973 and 39 per cent of those born in 1983 (ONS marriages workbook, Table 14b, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.)

The ONS puts the 2023 medians in England and Wales among the highest ever recorded - 34.8 years for men and 33.0 for women marrying someone of the opposite sex, with more marriages in the 30 to 34 bracket than any other age group. The bulletin is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2023. The rise is recent. The CSJ found the median age lower in the 1970s than for much of the twentieth century. At the turn of the century, the women's median had never exceeded 30, but it now stands at 33 (ONS marriages workbook, Table 6a, 18 November 2025, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) The CSJ's report is at https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CSJ-I_Do.pdf. Northern Ireland's average age at marriage rose roughly seven years in three decades, from 28.9 for grooms and 27.0 for brides to 35.7 and 33.9 in 2022, in the Registrar General's report at https://library2.nics.gov.uk/pdf/dof/2023/PDF230105.pdf.

In England and Wales, today's brides and grooms are among the oldest on record, and there were 46 per cent fewer of them in 2023 than 50 years earlier (ONS marriages workbook, Tables 1a and 6a, 18 November 2025, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.)

THE COLLAPSE OF RELIGIOUS MARRIAGE

In England and Wales in 1992, religious and civil ceremonies split roughly evenly. By 2023, 85 per cent of ceremonies were civil and 15 per cent religious - around one wedding in seven (ONS marriages workbook, Table 1b, 18 November 2025, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) The CSJ's I Do? report traces the fall. Religious weddings between a man and a woman numbered 215,711 in 1973, halved to 107,020 by 1997, then halved again between 2014 (68,028) and 2023 (32,473). Church of England and Church in Wales weddings are down 84 per cent in 50 years (ONS marriages workbook, Table 1b, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.) Outside the pandemic year of 2020, they're the fewest since records began in the 1830s - despite a population four times the size (ONS population estimates for England and Wales, 29 July 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/estimatesofthepopulationforenglandandwales/englandandwalespopulationestimates1838to2025/ewpopulationestimates18382025.xlsx.) The CSJ's report is at https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CSJ-I_Do.pdf.

Scotland shows where the trend leads. In 2024, National Records of Scotland counted 8,142 humanist ceremonies - three in ten of all Scottish marriages, more than six times the Church of Scotland's 1,252, with the Roman Catholic Church at 647. Its tables are at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/vital-events-reference-tables-2024/.

Marriage was once understood as a covenant before God as well as a contract before the state. These tables show fewer couples making their vows before God, year by year, and that vow helped keep marriage a promise for life.

DIVORCE - LOWER THAN YOU THINK

There were 105,002 divorces in England and Wales in 2025, plus 959 civil partnership dissolutions - much the same as in 2023 and 2024, and well below the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, when there were around 150,000 divorces a year. The ONS divorce bulletin, released on 23 September 2026, is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2024and2025. The divorce rate for opposite-sex couples was 8.4 per 1,000 opposite-sex married people in 2025, against a peak of 14.2 per 1,000 in 1993 (from the same bulletin.) The median opposite-sex marriage ending in divorce had lasted 13.0 years, the longest since the ONS series began in 1963. Of the 2025 divorces, 102,879 were of opposite-sex couples and 2,123 of same-sex couples, the latter comprising 1,454 female couples and 669 male couples - Table 1 of the ONS workbook, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/datasets/divorcesanddissolutionsinenglandandwales. None of this is comfort. Fewer couples now marry at all, and when parents who never married split up, divorce statistics can't record it.

The claim that half of all marriages end in divorce is a myth, because no year's weddings since 1963 have reached one in two. Of the couples who married in 2015, just 16.3 per cent had divorced by their tenth anniversary, and more than eight in ten, 83.7 per cent, had not (ONS divorce workbook, Table 9b, 23 September 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/datasets/divorcesanddissolutionsinenglandandwales.) And the ONS's own comparison shows the couples who married in 1995 divorced more at the same point - nearly one in four (24.7 per cent) within ten years. The highest of all, the couples of 1987, stood at 45.3 per cent after 38 years (ONS divorce workbook, Table 9b, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/datasets/divorcesanddissolutionsinenglandandwales.) The couples who marry now are fewer, but they hold.

The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 - no-fault divorce - came into effect on 6 April 2022, bringing what the ONS described in its 2023 bulletin as "the removal of grounds for divorce and dissolution" together with new mandatory waiting periods, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2023. The September 2026 bulletin shows that in 2025, 94.2 per cent of all divorces and civil partnership dissolutions were granted under the new law. Of the divorces granted under it, 74.3 per cent were applied for by one spouse alone (ONS divorce bulletin, 23 September 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2024and2025.) The Act's full text is at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/11/contents. Under it, one spouse alone, giving no reason, now ends three divorces in four. Scotland's divorces have fallen too - 7,744 in 2022, down from 13,365 in 1985, in the Scottish Government's civil justice statistics at https://www.gov.scot/publications/civil-justice-statistics-scotland-2022-23/pages/5/. The Scottish Government has since paused the next edition, for 2023-24, and the replacement figures leave out the grounds of divorce (Scottish Government, civil justice statistics, at https://www.gov.scot/collections/civil-justice-statistics/.) Northern Ireland retains fault grounds for divorce. When its Department of Finance consulted on reform, from June to September 2025, some two thirds of online respondents saw no need to change the law and 80 per cent wanted fault grounds retained (see https://www.finance-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2026-01/Consultation%20on%20Divorce%20and%20Dissolution%20of%20Civil%20Partnerships%20-%20Report%20and%20Analysis%20-FINAL.pdf.)

WHAT BRITAIN HAS STOPPED COUNTING

This record has a hole in it that Government and Parliament put there deliberately.

England and Wales no longer count the children of divorce. Since Parliament passed the Children and Families Act 2014, divorcing couples haven't had to give details of their children (ONS user guide to divorce statistics, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/methodologies/userguidetodivorcestatistics.) The Office for National Statistics stopped publishing statistics on those children after the 2014 data year (see the same user guide.) And since August 2017 the Ministry of Justice's divorce application hasn't recorded children at all. The discontinued series ends in Tables 8 and 9 of the ONS divorces workbook at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/datasets/divorcesinenglandandwales/2014/divorcetables2014.xls, and the ONS user guide that records each step is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/methodologies/userguidetodivorcestatistics. So nobody in England and Wales can now say how many children see their parents divorce in a year. The question is no longer asked (see the same user guide.)

Other countries still ask it. In New Zealand, for instance, 5,715 children under 17 had parents granted a divorce in the year to December 2025 (Statistics New Zealand, released 4 May 2026, at https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/marriages-civil-unions-and-divorces-year-ended-december-2025/.)

Nor is there any national count in the UK of the children whose unmarried parents separate. The Department for Work and Pensions' figure for children in separated families, 3.9 million in 2024-25, is a survey estimate for Great Britain alone, and its definition makes no distinction between parents who had married and parents who hadn't (Separated families statistics, 26 March 2026, at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/separated-families-statistics-april-2014-to-march-2025/separated-families-statistics-april-2014-to-march-2025.) Those separations aren't registered anywhere, because the parents never married. They appear only in survey research, years later and at second hand. Divorces are at least counted, even if their children no longer are. The break-up of unmarried parents isn't counted at all, and it now accounts for the greater part of family breakdown in the United Kingdom (Marriage Foundation, Source of Family Breakdown, at https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/source-of-family-breakdown/.) So the Government doesn't count most family breakdown.

The Government once measured family stability itself, and then stopped. The Department for Work and Pensions' Family Stability Indicator, an annual Official Statistic of its Social Justice Outcomes Framework, found that in 2013-14, 82 per cent of babies under one but only 63 per cent of 15-year-olds were living with both their birth parents - 71 per cent of all children up to 16. That edition, published on 22 March 2016, was the last, at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80875e40f0b62305b8bad8/social-justice-family-stability-indicator-2013-2014.pdf, and the Department's collection page lists no later one, at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/social-justice-outcomes-framework-family-stability-indicator. In October 2017 the Department added the note that its social justice indicators "are no longer being updated and have been replaced by indicators used in the Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families analysis and research pack" - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-justice-outcomes-framework-indicators. In plain words, the Government stopped counting how many children live with both their parents, and it hasn't counted them since. Even the Parental Conflict Indicator, which gave the proportion of children affected by parental conflict, was released for the final time on 12 March 2025 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-statistical-work-programme/changes-made-to-dwp-statistics-since-april-2025.

Nor is children's mental health now published by family type. England's 2017 national survey reported children's mental disorders by the marital status of their parent. The NHS Digital report is at https://files.digital.nhs.uk/85/7FFC57/MHCYP%202017%20Predictors.pdf, and what it found is set out at https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/why-marriage-matters. The published tables of the 2023 follow-up survey don't break the figures down by family type or by parents' marital status at all. NHS England's 2023 tables dropped the comparison just as the share of 8 to 16 year olds with a probable mental disorder rose from 12.5 per cent in 2017 to 20.3 per cent in 2023, so they can't show whether children of unmarried parents bore more of that rise (NHS England, 2023 data tables, at https://files.digital.nhs.uk/2D/D88231/mhcyp_2023_tab.xlsx.)

Four more gaps are worth naming. There is no official United Kingdom series for marriage by education. The 2021 Census gave England and Wales a single snapshot by qualification (Office for National Statistics, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/articles/marriageandcivilpartnershipstatusenglandandwalescensus2021/2023-02-22.) There is no current United Kingdom count of step-families outside the census (Office for National Statistics, Families and households quality and methods guide, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/methodologies/familiesandhouseholdsqmi.) And the four nations publish figures for same-sex marriage, civil partnership and the conversion of civil partnership into marriage on different definitions and different start dates, so no harmonised United Kingdom series exists. Nor does the Office for National Statistics still publish its Labour Force Survey estimates of families and households for Northern Ireland (Office for National Statistics, Families and households in the UK: 2025, 17 April 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2025.)

These gaps aren't neutral. The Government must stop airbrushing marriage out of the picture and publish at once, and every year, how many children see their parents divorce, how many see their unmarried parents separate, how many grow up with both their parents, and how children fare by family type and by whether their parents are married.

THE RISE OF COHABITATION

Cohabiting-couple families stood at 3.5 million across the UK in 2025 - 17.6 per cent of all families. The ONS's Families and households in the UK: 2025 is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2025. In England and Wales, 10.8 per cent of people aged 18 and over were cohabiting in 2025 without ever having married or formed a civil partnership, up from 9.8 per cent in 2015 (Office for National Statistics, Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, 31 July 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationestimatesbymaritalstatusandlivingarrangements/2025.) Cohabitation before marriage is now all but universal. In England and Wales the ONS recorded its highest levels yet in 2021 and 2022, with nine in ten opposite-sex couples living together before marrying, against 59.6 per cent in 1994, the earliest year measured - see https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2021and2022. And of people aged 25 to 29 living in a couple in England and Wales in 2021, 71.6 per cent were cohabiting, up from 56.5 per cent in 2011, and for most couples of that age living together has taken the place of marriage (ONS, People's living arrangements in England and Wales: Census 2021, 9 February 2023, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/articles/livingarrangementsofpeopleinenglandandwales/census2021.) The stability consequences of that shift are set out at https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/why-marriage-matters.

MARRIAGE AND THE BIRTH OF CHILDREN

Marriage used to come before children. The registration record shows how far the two have come apart, and that the trend has now turned.

There were 585,396 live births in England and Wales in 2025, of which 311,703 - 53.2 per cent - were inside marriage or civil partnership, and 273,693 were outside it. The Office for National Statistics first published these counts in May 2026, and the registration workbook is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsinenglandandwalesbirthregistrations/2025/2025birthregistrations.xlsx. The long series runs one way for 60 years and then turns: in 1960, 94.6 per cent of births in England and Wales were inside marriage (in the same workbook, Table 6.) In 1970 it was 91.7 per cent, in 1980 88.2, in 1990 71.7, in 2000 60.5, in 2010 53.2 and in 2020 51.0, civil partnerships included. In 2021, for the first time since records began in 1845, most babies were born outside marriage or civil partnership, with 48.7 per cent born inside it (ONS, Birth characteristics in England and Wales: 2021, 19 January 2023, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthcharacteristicsinenglandandwales/2021.) The low point was 2022, at 48.6 per cent. Then 50.5 per cent in 2023, 52.4 in 2024 and 53.2 in 2025 (ONS registration workbook, Table 6, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsinenglandandwalesbirthregistrations/2025/2025birthregistrations.xlsx.) Three years of recovery don't undo 60 years of decline, but the direction has changed (see the same workbook.)

The registration form also records where the parents live. Of all 2025 births, 188,863 - 32.3 per cent - were registered jointly by parents at the same address, which is 69.0 per cent of the births outside marriage or civil partnership. A further 59,648 - 10.2 per cent - were registered jointly by parents at different addresses, and 25,182 - 4.3 per cent - by the mother alone (ONS registration workbook, Table 6, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsinenglandandwalesbirthregistrations/2025/2025birthregistrations.xlsx.) That address test is a proxy for living together on the day of registration, not proof of a stable home.

The order of events has reversed within a generation. The standardised mean age of first-time mothers in England and Wales was 29.6 in 2025, and of all mothers 31.1, with fathers at 34.0 - Table 11 of the registration workbook and https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2025finalrates. The median ages at opposite-sex marriage in 2023 were 34.8 for men and 33.0 for women - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2023. These are not the same measure and not the same year, so the gap is indicative rather than exact. But on the face of the official record, the average first-time mother is now some three and a half years younger than the average first-time bride. That's 29.6 against 33.0, the mean age of first-time brides in 2023 (ONS registration workbook, Table 11, and marriages workbook, Table 7a, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsinenglandandwalesbirthregistrations/2025/2025birthregistrations.xlsx and https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx.)

Each generation is also having fewer children. In England and Wales, women born in 1979 averaged 1.95 children, and the ONS projects 1.48 for women born in 2008 and 1.43 for a girl born in 2026 (ONS cohort fertility bulletin, 10 June 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/bulletins/childbearingforwomenbornindifferentyearsenglandandwales/2024.)

Scotland's record of births inside marriage runs the same way as in England and Wales. In 1956-60, 95.8 per cent of Scottish births were inside marriage, falling to 91.9 per cent in 1971, 88.9 in 1980 and 72.9 by 1990. National Records of Scotland holds the series in Tables 1.01(a) and (b) of its 2025 annual tables, at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/adoptions-births-deaths-marriages-and-civil-partnerships-in-scotland-2025-registrar-generals-annual-statistical-tables-of-vital-events/. In 2025, 49.0 per cent of Scottish births were to married parents. That was up three years running from 45.4 per cent in 2022, the lowest in a table that begins in 1974 - National Records of Scotland, Table 3.02, at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/adoptions-births-deaths-marriages-and-civil-partnerships-in-scotland-2025-registrar-generals-annual-statistical-tables-of-vital-events/. In Northern Ireland, 10,492 of the 19,416 births registered in 2024 were inside marriage or civil partnership - 54.0 per cent - and 8,924, 46.0 per cent, were outside it. The Registrar General's birth tables are at https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/registrar-general-annual-report-2024-births.

THE FAMILIES CHILDREN LIVE IN

There were 3.2 million lone-parent families in the United Kingdom in 2025, 16.0 per cent of all 19.9 million families, against 3.0 million and 16.2 per cent in 2015 - the ONS families bulletin of 17 April 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2025. Married couples of a man and a woman made up 64.7 per cent of families, down from 66.5 per cent in 2015 - Tables 1 and 9 of the ONS families workbook, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/datasets/familiesandhouseholdsfamiliesandhouseholds.

The ONS is reweighting the Labour Force Survey, the source of these family and household counts, back to 2012 against population estimates rebased on the 2021 Census, so the married, cohabiting and lone-parent family series for 2012 to 2025 will be revised - see https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/methodologies/familiesandhouseholdsqmi.

The fullest count of step-families is the 2021 Census for England and Wales, whose figures were published on 5 March 2024 (ONS, Children in families in England and Wales: Census 2021, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/childreninfamiliesinenglandandwales/census2021.) It found 780,885 step-families, of which 546,715 contained dependent children. Of all the step-families, 251,165 were identifiable blended families - families containing children from the current relationship and from a previous one (ONS, Step-families, blended families and dependent children: Census 2021, 5 March 2024, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/datasets/stepfamiliesblendedfamiliesanddependentchildrencensus2021.) The ONS is careful to say that this is an undercount, because it can only trace every relationship in households of five people or fewer, and it expects the exclusion of larger households to matter. The bulletin is at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/childreninfamiliesinenglandandwales/census2021.

The same census counted the children. Of the dependent children in England and Wales, 7,059,590 lived with a married or civil-partnered couple, 2,041,000 with a cohabiting couple, and 3,298,255 with a lone parent (ONS, Step-families, blended families and dependent children: Census 2021, Table 1c, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/datasets/stepfamiliesblendedfamiliesanddependentchildrencensus2021.)

Two further figures complete the picture of who lives with whom. By their 14th birthday, 46 per cent of first-born children in the United Kingdom are not living with both natural parents. Among those whose parents are still together, 84 per cent of those parents are married - Marriage Foundation analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study, at https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/source-of-family-breakdown/. Marriage is where children keep both their parents. What follows from these arrangements for the children in them is a separate question, answered at https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/why-marriage-matters.

BRITAIN IN THE WORLD

The retreat is not Britain's alone. Across the European Union, the crude marriage rate has more than halved since 1964 - from 8.0 marriages per 1,000 people to 3.9 in 2024 (Eurostat, Marriage and divorce statistics, Table 1, at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Marriage_and_divorce_statistics.) England and Wales are lower still. Their 224,402 marriages in 2023, among 61,155,866 people, come to 3.7 per 1,000 on our calculation, against the European Union's 4.0 that year (ONS marriages workbook, Table 1a, and population estimates, Table 7, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/datasets/marriagesinenglandandwales2013/2023/marriagesworkbook2023.xlsx and https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/estimatesofthepopulationforenglandandwales/englandandwalespopulationestimates1838to2025/ewpopulationestimates18382025.xlsx.)

WHAT THE NUMBERS MEAN

The Coalition for Marriage reads these tables from a settled conviction. Marriage - the voluntary, exclusive, lifelong union of one man and one woman - is the gold standard for families and society, and its retreat is the most consequential social trend in modern British life.

These numbers record a generation marrying far less often, a decade later, with the religious understanding of the covenant collapsing fastest of all. The loss has landed on the poorest first (see https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/why-marriage-matters.) In England and Wales, the Divorce Reform Act 1969, in force from 1 January 1971, made the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage the single ground for divorce (ONS user guide to divorce statistics, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/methodologies/userguidetodivorcestatistics.) Government and Parliament then removed the last requirement to give any reason why a marriage has broken down, in a law that came into force in 2022 (Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020, section 1, at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/11/section/1.) That completed 50 years of law telling the country that the public, lifelong promise of a man and a woman is a private lifestyle choice, not one of the foundations it stands on (ONS user guide to divorce statistics, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/methodologies/userguidetodivorcestatistics.)

The Government stopped counting the children of divorce in England and Wales after 2014, and since 2017 its own divorce application hasn't recorded them (ONS user guide to divorce statistics, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/methodologies/userguidetodivorcestatistics.) The ONS blames the quality of the data. But it was the Children and Families Act 2014 that let divorcing couples leave their children out, and in 2017 the Government stopped asking at all (see the same user guide.) That was a decision not to know, and a judgement that those children's experience doesn't matter.

But three figures give hope. The marriages that do form are holding better than the 1995 cohort did at the same point - more than eight in ten of the 2015 cohort, 83.7 per cent, had not divorced at ten years (ONS divorce bulletin, 23 September 2026, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2024and2025.) And the desire to marry runs far ahead of the practice. Among unmarried 18 to 30-year-olds in a relationship, 86 per cent of women and 80 per cent of men said in 2021 that they would like to get married at some point - a OnePoll survey for the Marriage Foundation at https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/research/tiktok-generation-say-i-want-to-get-married/, reported in the CSJ's I Do? at https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CSJ-I_Do.pdf. Three quarters of Gen Z adults want to get married (75 per cent), according to an Opinium survey of 2,000 Gen Z adults aged 18 to 27, at https://www.charlesrussellspeechlys.com/en/insights/expert-insights/private-client/2025/gen-z-and-milestone-planning/. Yet on present trends only 58 per cent of Gen Z women and 56 per cent of the men in England and Wales will ever marry (Marriage Foundation analysis of ONS data, at https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/MF-briefing-note-Collapse-of-marriage-among-Gen-Z.pdf.) And the share of babies born inside marriage or civil partnership in England and Wales has risen three years running, from its 2022 low of 48.6 per cent to 53.2 per cent in 2025 (ONS registration workbook, Table 6, at https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/birthsinenglandandwalesbirthregistrations/2025/2025birthregistrations.xlsx.) The wish to marry is still there, but Government and Parliament have made marriage easier to leave and stopped counting what its loss costs children. Rebuilding marriage - in law and in culture - is what the Coalition for Marriage exists to do.

Use these figures, each with its source. Receive the Coalition for Marriage briefings at https://www.c4m.org.uk/subscribe and support the campaign at https://www.c4m.org.uk/donate.

RELATED PAGES ON C4M.ORG.UK

https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/why-marriage-matters - Why Marriage Matters, the evidence for marriage, opening with the case in 27 points, with the objections answered

https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/the-marriage-advantage-why-children-thrive-with-married-biological-parents - The Marriage Advantage for Children, on why children thrive with their married biological parents

https://www.c4m.org.uk/marriage-support/cohabitation-vs-marriage - Cohabitation vs Marriage, on what the evidence says

KEY SOURCES

Every online source on this page was accessed between 4 and 29 October 2026.

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