In 1961, the girls first married for an average age of about 22 years. After 1989, however, there was a turning point and the average age of brides at the time of their first marriage began to rise. Last year, for the first time in history, it exceeded 30 years. A similar trend can be observed in men, for whom the average age at the first marriage from the original 25 years in 1989 increased last year to approximately 33. This follows from CZSO statistics.
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The “aging” of brides and grooms last year may be due to a pandemic. While older couples often wanted to hold the wedding at all costs, the younger ones decided to postpone their perfect day rather than adapt it with measures.
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“The priorities of a twenty-year-old and a forty-year-old bride are diametrically opposed. A young lady between the ages of 20 and 25 decides to wait for her life dream. For an older bride, marriage is about something other than having everything perfect and then a lavish celebration with friends until five in the morning, ”explains Petra Šauer from the Easy Wedding wedding agency.
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CZSO statistics also show that Czechs are not in a hurry, not only with marriage, but also with children. While sixty years ago, women usually gave birth to their first child at the age of less than 23, last year the average age of first-borns exceeded 28 years.
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According to the CZSO, on the other hand, the number of marriages ending in divorce has fallen slightly in recent years. It had a growing tendency until 2011, when the divorce rate reached a record 50 percent. But then it started to decline and last year it reached about 40 percent. The average length of marriage at the time of divorce in the Czech Republic is between thirteen and fourteen years, which is three to four years more than sixty years ago.
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The data published by the CZSO also show that, together with the growing age of brides and grooms, the number of marriages began to decline after the revolution. While in 1961, about 95 percent of men married and even more women before the age of 50, in 2011 it was only about 50 percent of men and 60 percent of women.
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The fewest weddings in the last hundred years
After reaching the minimum in 2013, the number of weddings began to grow again. However, he was slowed down by a pandemic, which thwarted the plans of many fiancés. In March 2020, according to available data, even less than 600 couples were married, which is the lowest number of marriages in the last hundred years.
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“At the time of the declared state of emergency, there could be no wedding, and even during dismantling, the wedding guests were subject to strict observance of hygienic measures. There were a total of 332 wedding ceremonies in České Budějovice in 2020. 140 of them were canceled, of which 3 were registered partnerships, “said the mayor of České Budějovice Jiří Svoboda.
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Compared to 2019, the number of weddings in the whole Czech Republic decreased by a fifth. The total number of marriages in 2020 is very close to 2013, when the least Czechs entered into marriage at all.
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