Marriages and Unions

Stats NZ reported marriage and civil union data.

Since civil unions began in 2005, the totals have been:

• 1,449 female couples (45%)
• 1,092 male couples (34%)
• 657 male-female couples (21%)

For marriage the data for the last quarter is:

• 61 female couples (2.2%)
• 56 male couples (2.0%)
• 2,681 male-female couples (95.8%)

However same sex marriages were only available for just under half the quarter.

The total number of same sex marriages and unions in the quarter was 139 and the total number of marriages and unions was 2,831. That means 4.9% of unions and marriages were of same sex couples. Now that was for only half a quarter but one would also expect an initial flurry. U guess we won’t know for a few more quarters what the long-term marriage rates will be for each. It would be interesting to find out if over time there was a greater or smaller marriage rate among same sex couples and heterosexual couples. But that is hard to calculate without know the population size for each group/