Countries With the Lowest Marriage Rates
Every country with a figure for marriage rate, ranked from lowest to highest. The top three are Colombia (1.39), United Kingdom (1.4) and Canada (2.6). The middle country of the 46 has 4.39.
What this measures
Crude marriage rate, in marriages per 1,000 people. Source: OECD. For this measure, no agreed better direction.
Registered marriages in the year per 1,000 people (counted at mid-year), from official records. Couples living together and registered partnerships are left out. So the rate shows how often people marry, and nothing about how many live as couples. New Zealand counts civil unions. Same-sex marriages count in each country's figure from the year it made them legal. This is the only ready-made series that compares countries. It covers only OECD members, about forty countries, nearly all of them rich. So its links with other measures are worked out over only a third of the countries on the site, and adjusting for GDP has less to remove. The low points in 2020 are the pandemic, not a break in the series. But the British and Canadian series stop at 2020, so their latest value is that low point: 1.4 and 2.6, against 3.7 and 3.9 the year before. The links with the governance measures stay the same using pre-pandemic values, or with both countries removed. No "better" direction is set: it describes how people live, not how well a country is doing.
The full ranking
Each country’s latest figure, from 2012–2022. The year beside each value says when it was measured.
| Rank | Country | Marriage rate | Year | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colombia | 1.39 | 2022 | Latin America & Caribbean |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 1.4 | 2020 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 3 | Canada | 2.6 | 2020 | North America |
| 4 | Chile | 2.7 | 2021 | Latin America & Caribbean |
| 5 | Argentina | 2.79 | 2018 | Latin America & Caribbean |
| 6 | Italy | 3.2 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 7 | Slovenia | 3.2 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 8 | Ireland | 3.3 | 2021 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 9 | Portugal | 3.5 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 10 | France | 3.6 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 11 | New Zealand | 3.68 | 2022 | East Asia & Pacific |
| 12 | Spain | 3.7 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 13 | Korea, Rep. | 3.7 | 2022 | East Asia & Pacific |
| 14 | Luxembourg | 3.8 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 15 | Norway | 3.8 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 16 | Bulgaria | 3.9 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 17 | Finland | 3.9 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 18 | Mexico | 3.9 | 2022 | Latin America & Caribbean |
| 19 | Netherlands | 4 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 20 | Japan | 4.1 | 2022 | East Asia & Pacific |
| 21 | Belgium | 4.2 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 22 | Greece | 4.2 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 23 | Poland | 4.2 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 24 | Costa Rica | 4.39 | 2022 | Latin America & Caribbean |
| 25 | Sweden | 4.6 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 26 | Switzerland | 4.7 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 27 | Germany | 4.7 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 28 | Croatia | 4.7 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 29 | Malta | 4.8 | 2022 | Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan |
| 30 | Australia | 4.89 | 2022 | East Asia & Pacific |
| 31 | Iceland | 5 | 2020 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 32 | Czechia | 5.1 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 33 | Austria | 5.24 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 34 | Estonia | 5.3 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 35 | Denmark | 5.34 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 36 | Slovak Republic | 5.4 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 37 | Israel | 5.46 | 2021 | Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan |
| 38 | Lithuania | 5.7 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 39 | Romania | 6.2 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 40 | United States | 6.2 | 2022 | North America |
| 41 | Latvia | 6.3 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 42 | Hungary | 6.6 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 43 | Turkiye | 6.8 | 2022 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 44 | Russian Federation | 8.5 | 2013 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 45 | Cyprus | 8.9 | 2019 | Europe & Central Asia |
| 46 | China | 9.6 | 2012 | East Asia & Pacific |
More on marriage rate
- Countries With the Highest Marriage Rates
- Marriage rate by country: trend over time and what it goes with
Related rankings
- Countries With the Lowest Religious Attendance
- Countries With the Lowest Religion Very Important
- Countries With the Lowest Frequent Prayer
- Countries With the Lowest Confidence in Religious Institutions
- Countries With the Lowest Divorce Rates
- Countries With the Lowest Births Outside Marriage
- Countries With the Lowest Women's Age at First Marriage
- Countries With the Lowest Children with One Parent
A ranking describes countries, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All country rankings.