The pandemic has led many, especially young people, to postpone the wedding, which in just one year have almost halved: in fact 96,841 weddings were celebrated in 2020, 87,000 less than in 2019 equal to -47.4%. Civil unions, separations and divorces also fell sharply due to Covid: the former, between same-sex partners, fell by 33%, separations by 18% and divorces by 21.9%. The photograph is returned to us by Istat in the Report released today on marriages, civil unions, separations and divorces.
Setback in the peak of the pandemic
The setback is observed starting from March 2020 with peaks in April and May precisely due to the heavy restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Some containment measures, such as the ban on gatherings or the maximum number of people in the event of events, however, concerned the whole of 2020 and continued last year.
Signs of recovery in 2021
In the first 9 months of 2021, according to provisional data, there are good signs of recovery: in fact, marriages have doubled compared to the same period of 2020. This recovery of the wedding, however, is not enough to recover those lost in 2020. in fact, in the first nine months of 2021 with the same pre-pandemic period the variation remains negative (-4.5%). The type of marriage most recovering is that of the first religious marriages, which had recorded the greatest decline during the spread of the epidemic. These are in fact more than quadrupled (+ 228%) but, even in this case, the increase in 2021 does not bring back to pre-pandemic levels (-8.8% compared to the same period in 2019).
Civil marriages are also on the decline
The decline in civil marriages is more contained. In fact, more than two out of three weddings took place with a civil ceremony: the measures to contain the health emergency, in fact, led to a vertical decline especially in marriages celebrated with a religious rite which is more than double that of civil marriages (- 67.9% versus -28.9%). For the latter this is the first exceptional setback after a phase of continuous growth.
Almost 1 out of 5 marriages also saw at least one foreign bridegroom: in 2020 18,832 weddings were celebrated with at least one foreign bridegroom, a decrease of 44.9% compared to the previous year. There is also a sharp decline in marriages between foreigners who choose Italy as the place to celebrate the wedding: in 2020 this type of marriage (represented by couples of both foreigners in which neither of them is a resident) suffered a decline of -77, 6%.