The age women get married varies vastly in different parts of the world. In some lands, it's common for women to wait until their 30s while women elsewhere walk down the aisle as teenagers. According to the data, this is the age women all across the globe are getting married.
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00:00The age women get married varies vastly in different parts of the world.
00:04In some lands, it's common for women to wait until their 30s, while women elsewhere walk
00:09down the aisle as teenagers.
00:11According to the data, this is the age women all across the globe are getting married.
00:16The average age a woman is married in Niger is 17.2 years old, while in Mozambique it's
00:2318.7, according to data from the United Nations tabulated by Quartz.
00:28The reason that average is so low is because child marriage is still very much a thing
00:33in many African countries.
00:35Siyode White, Malawi's coordinator for the Women in Law in Southern Africa Research Trust,
00:41told the New York Times back in 2005 that even though people want child marriage to
00:45end, girls were still being traded like objects.
00:50Society still clings to the education of the boy, and sees the girl as a trading tool.
00:54In the north, girls as early as 10 are being traded off for the family to gain.
01:00After that, the women become owned and powerless in their husbands' villages.
01:04While child marriage was outlawed in some African countries like Malawi, Gambia, and
01:18Chad, child marriage still occurs in many of those nations and beyond.
01:23According to Girls Not Brides, one in five girls around the world is married before they
01:27turn 18, and most of those marriages occur in Africa.
01:32Throughout the Middle East, you may notice that the marriage age among women is surprisingly
01:36low, but there's a reason for that.
01:38In many Middle Eastern nations, child marriage is still legal, and is, in fact, arranged
01:43by the parents of the girls in many instances.
01:46In Egypt and Iraq, the average age women get married is around 22, according to the United
01:52Nations, with many younger women making up that low average.
01:56One Baghdad woman recalled her experience being forced to marry at the age of 13 in
02:01an interview with Al-Fama Media.
02:04"...I was forced to leave my studies in 8th grade and, after marriage, my life was hard.
02:09Before this marriage, I was a good student and made plans with my best friend, Shaima,
02:14to become a dentist.
02:15I lost my education."
02:17The woman even said that after she got divorced, her dad forbade her from going back to school,
02:22claiming that she had brought shame onto the family.
02:26According to the publication Russia Beyond, the number of marriages with at least one
02:29partner being younger than 18 years old was 29,111 in 2002 and only 7,530 in 2016.
02:39Yes, over the decades, couples in Russia have gradually started waiting longer to tie the
02:44knot.
02:45What's more, according to United Nations data, the average age a woman gets married in Russia
02:50is 24.4.
02:52That's still pretty young subjectively, but not as young as many other countries.
02:56As Russia Beyond explained, men and women in Russia may still be feeling the pressure
03:01from older conservatives to tie the knot, yet not as many singles are rushing into marriage.
03:07As the statistics show, not nearly as many women feel compelled to take the plunge in
03:11their late teens to early 20s as they did back in 2002.
03:16In Mexico, child marriage is still a pretty big issue.
03:20Though the union was outlawed in 2014, according to NPR, the ideals surrounding the practice
03:25remain.
03:26According to the United Nations, the average age women get married in Mexico is 23.2.
03:32As one woman told NPR, many people in Mexico still subscribe to the traditional belief
03:37system that a woman's place is in the home, so they should get married early and be wives
03:42and mothers.
03:43Celestina Guzman, a 20-year-old community center member in Oaxaca, Mexico, explained
03:49to the publication,
03:50"...The idea here is that women aren't meant to study, but rather raise kids.
03:55You'll get married, so there's no reason to study.
03:57Your responsibility is the household."
04:00Of course, now that child marriage is outlawed, the average age has gone up, but still, one-fifth
04:04of Mexican women get married before the age of 18, per NPR.
04:10According to data from the United Nations, women in Brazil get married at an average
04:14age of 23.9.
04:16This low average is likely due to the fact that child marriage remains prevalent in the
04:21South American country.
04:22As researcher Alice Taylor told Reuters,
04:25"...child marriage in Brazil is very normalized and accepted."
04:28Citing 2010 government census data, Reuters reported that,
04:33"...Brazil is ranked fourth in the world in the number of girls married to or living with
04:37a partner by the age of 15."
04:40In Brazil, the sad truth of child marriage is that it is oftentimes perceived as the
04:45only way out of an abusive home situation for young girls.
04:49Although the legal age of marriage in Brazil is 16, if there is a pregnancy, girls can
04:54get married even younger than that.
04:56While many women across the world are finding freedom in getting married later, women and
05:00girls in Brazil don't really have that option.
05:03Interestingly, the age at which people marry seems to rise in accordance with a country's
05:08wealth, according to Quartz.
05:10The average marriage age in China rose from just 22 for women and 24 for men in 1990,
05:17to 25 and 27 respectively in 2016, a period when the country experienced rapid economic
05:24growth.
05:25Of course, that doesn't mean that every woman in China wants to marry later, but it becomes
05:29a trend.
05:30Dai Xuan, a 30-year-old Chinese woman, said of the increasing marriage age when speaking
05:36to National Public Radio,
05:37People my age laugh at those who get married early, because only rural people without an
05:42education do that.
05:44It's not that successful women don't want to marry, it's that making money makes us
05:48pickier.
05:49Whether or not having more money does indeed make women pickier, there's no denying the
05:53fact that women in China are holding off on marriage, and many seem happy to do so.
05:59China has changed way too much, so it is very difficult for them to understand what their
06:06children actually like."
06:07Over in Belgium, women are waiting longer to get married than women had in previous
06:13generations.
06:14According to United Nations data, 26.3 is the average age women say, I do, in Belgium.
06:21According to Statista, the number of marriages in Belgium from 2007 to 2018 was rather unstable,
06:27yet staying in the lines of 37 to 45,000.
06:31However, the site also reported that,
06:34Between 2013 and 2018, the number of marriages increased overall, peaking at 45,059 marriages
06:41in 2018.
06:43And in 2017, the marriage rate decreased.
06:46Basically, marriage in Belgium is kind of an enigma.
06:49While we do know that women there wait longer to get married, compared to women in many
06:53other parts of the world, it's unclear how that could change in the future.
06:58In the United Kingdom, women are putting off marriage.
07:01In fact, the British-based wedding website Bridebook surveyed 4,000 couples who recently
07:06got married and found that women in the U.K. were waiting longer and longer to get married.
07:11The survey found,
07:12The average age of a single woman getting married in 1971 was 22.6 years old.
07:17In 2017, it is 30.8 years old.
07:21The founder of Bridebook, Hamish Sheppard, told Harper's Bazaar that the fact that women
07:25in the U.K. were getting married older was really a good thing, explaining,
07:30The divorce rate will likely be on the decline for the foreseeable future as marriage increasingly
07:35becomes the fully informed, independent choice of couples wishing to demonstrate their commitment
07:40to one another without the pressure seen in previous generations.
07:45Back in 2015, BBC News reported that Spain had finally raised the minimum age for marriage
07:50from 14 to 16 years old.
07:53Previously, the country had the lowest marrying age in Europe.
07:57Interestingly enough, even though the legal marriage age in Spain was quite low, not many
08:01people actually got married that young.
08:03Per BBC News,
08:05Only 365 marriages involving under-16s took place in Spain between 2000 and 2014.
08:12Interestingly, the average marriage age for women in Spain is actually pretty high.
08:17According to research from the United Nations, women in the southwestern European country
08:22get married on average at the age of 27.7, which is far higher than many other countries
08:27where the legal marriage age is still so low.
08:31For a while in Japan, women felt massive pressure to get married.
08:35In fact, according to The New York Times, if a Japanese woman wasn't married before
08:39she turned 25, she would be labeled a Christmas cake, meaning a dessert past its sell-by date.
08:45However, the United Nations data in 2020 shows that times have changed.
08:49The average age women get married in Japan is now 29.2.
08:54These days, women in Japan just don't feel the same need to get married young as women
08:59from past generations had.
09:01As one 49-year-old woman in Japan told The New York Times,
09:04One reason to get married for a woman is to have a stable financial life.
09:09However, because many women in Japan have successful careers, they no longer need to
09:13marry for those reasons.
09:14As the woman explained,
09:15I don't have any worries about being alone with myself or any financial worries, so I
09:20did not have to chase myself into a corner and choose marriage for financial reasons.
09:25Japanese women are making themselves and their careers a priority and not letting marriage
09:30get in the way.
09:32In the Netherlands, marriage doesn't seem to really be a big deal, especially for women.
09:37In fact, according to research from the United Nations, the average age a Dutch woman gets
09:41married is 32.4.
09:44As Slate reported, the Dutch attitude about marriage is pretty laid back.
09:48Women don't feel the societal pressure to tie the knot, even if they want kids or have
09:52kids already.
09:53More than one Dutch woman told Slate that even though they were in their 40s, had kids,
09:58and had several previous romantic relationships, marriage was not something that mattered to
10:02them that much.
10:04That isn't to say that people in the Netherlands never get married or that Dutch women don't
10:07desire to get married, but it definitely isn't something they feel the need to jump
10:12into.
10:14Italy may be a romantic destination, but it turns out that women in Italy are not only
10:19getting married later, but they may actually be better off without a spouse at all.
10:24According to data from the United Nations, women in Italy get married on average at age
10:2932.2.
10:31Women in the Southern European country also tend to outlive their husbands and, interestingly
10:36enough, live better lives after their husbands pass on.
10:40According to an Italian study published in 2016, marital status seems to significantly
10:45influence the onset of frailty, with some gender-specific differences.
10:50As Quartz summarized,
10:52"...Italian widows over 65 do pretty well, better than widowers their age, and also better
10:57than married women their age."
11:00This may be due to a number of reasons, including the fact that the country has pretty stereotypical
11:04gender roles, and women are often expected to stay home and take care of their husbands
11:09and their social lives.
11:11"...I had a grandmother who lived in the basement, just cranking out lasagna."
11:21So when their husbands die, they have, in effect, less to worry about.
11:24It sounds bleak, but clearly women in Italy are doing something right.
11:30In France, many women don't seem to be in any kind of rush to get married, with the
11:34average age a woman gets married at 32.
11:37United Nations data revealed,
11:39"...the numbers don't lie.
11:41French women are postponing their weddings longer than women in other countries."
11:45According to a Eurostat study, 43 percent of babies born in France were born to a couple
11:50that wasn't married, which is the highest rate in the European Union.
11:54However, this isn't unique to France.
11:57As research in the book Consumer Behavior and Culture, Consequences for Global Marketing
12:01and Advertising explained,
12:03"...living alone and cohabitation, even if a couple has children, has become more popular
12:08in northern European countries."
12:10Still, it may just be true that French women know what they want, and even if that means
12:15a baby, they aren't going to get married just for that reason.
12:19For Americans, especially American women, marriage is becoming less and less important.
12:24Well, for the most part.
12:26Marriage may still be something women strive for in the United States, but millennials
12:30are getting married later than previous generations, according to The New York Times.
12:34The average age a woman gets married in America is 27.5, per data from the United Nations.
12:40While that's not exactly old, it is older than it used to be.
12:44Andrew Sherlyn, a sociologist at John Hopkins, told The New York Times that millennials are
12:49taking marriage more seriously than couples of the past.
12:52Marriage used to be the first step into adulthood.
12:55Now, it is often the last.
12:57For many couples, marriage is something you do when you have the whole rest of your personal
13:01life in order.
13:02Then, you bring family and friends together to celebrate.