Plummeting marriage rates in Italy: nowhere else in Europe do people get married less often than here

The situation is increasingly serious. Having recorded its lowest number of marriages in 2024 – 173,272, a full 11,000 fewer than in 2023 – Italy is set for a new low in 2025, when the figure will barely reach 165,000 marriages, according to as yet unofficial data. The downward trend in marriages shows no sign of stopping; indeed, the first five months of 2026 already show a considerable drop compared with the first five months of 2025, making it seem certain that by 2026, marriages in Italy will hit a new low, falling below the 160,000-a-year mark, 100,000 fewer marriages a year than in the early 2000s.

According to the latest official figures, from 2024, the marriage rate in Italy stands at 2.9 marriages per thousand inhabitants per year. The figure for the European Union at the same date is 3.9. Italy ranks last in the EU for marriage rate: nowhere else do people marry less than here. Although some countries may have even lower birth rates (Spain, Malta, the Baltic States), when it comes to ‘not’ getting married, no one beats us. And, given the trends suggested by unofficial marriage figures, the gap between us and the rest of the world – forget about football – is set to widen even further. From being the country with the highest number of marriages per capita, Italy has become the lowest, the country most resistant to marriage.

Regarding the decline in Italian marriage rates, which has been ongoing for over half a century, it is worth noting that whilst until 2023 it was only religious marriages that had been falling relentlessly year on year, in 2024 civil marriages also saw a decline, as will be the case in 2025 and 2026. Having risen to account for over two-thirds of all marriages, civil marriages are now beginning to feel the effects of Italians’ thoroughly modern aversion to marriage. In other words: the crisis in marriage is a systemic crisis or, if you prefer, an all-encompassing one. It is a crisis that involves structural, behavioural and motivational aspects.

Starting with the former. As a result of the falling birth rate, which dates back to the second half of the 1970s, the number of people in Italy aged 20–44 – the key age group comprising over 90 per cent of marriages – has fallen from 20.9 million at the start of the 2000s to 16.2 million today, a decline of 4.7 million: This represents a massive decline that is becoming increasingly evident every year, given that if the birth rate continues to fall, this population is set to shrink even further. And it would do so in a truly catastrophic manner were it not for immigration from abroad, which, whilst not exactly curing the problem, certainly helps to mitigate the decline.

As for the latter, when it comes to the state of marriage from a motivational perspective, it is not just the fall in the marriage rate that is telling, but perhaps, even more so, the incredible rise in the average age at marriage: which in 2024 stood at 34 years and 4 months for women and 37 years and 1 month for men. It should be noted, however, that these figures refer to unmarried women and men; if divorced and widowed individuals were included as well, the average ages at marriage would rise by a further two years or more.

We have thus arrived at the paradox of marriage, an institution/event/sacrament which an increasing number of couples enter into not with a view to having children and starting a family, but rather with a view to formalising, or bringing into line with the law, so to speak, the children and family they already have. Couples who already have a child are the most likely to marry. Consequently, rather than opening up the prospect of having children, marriage is increasingly closing it off. A devastating reversal of ends.

How it was possible for Italy, a land of marriages and children, to become, so to speak, a no-man’s-land – aseptic and barren – is a matter of debate. Those who reduce this debate to material factors – the lack of jobs (even though there have never been so many people in work), the high cost of housing, low wages, and a shortage of nurseries – would, I believe, be forgetting that conditions in Italy have never been so favourable for couples and families. These conditions can certainly be improved, but they should not be used as an excuse. The issue is no longer that. The real problem lies in the lifestyle choices of young Italians—a life that two preceding generations, their parents and grandparents, have paved the way for, making it easier for them. Too easy. That is the crux of the matter these days: in the easy lives of young people who can afford to dawdle for as long as they like, neither relationships nor marriages nor, God forbid, children flourish.