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A Characterization of World Union Patterns at the National and Regional Level

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Abstract

Patterns of union formation at the National and Regional level are documented for the first time based on a unique data set. Information on levels and trends in almost every country or territory of the world are monitored by building on the United Nations’ World Marriage Data 2008. Union formation has been postponed by an average of 2 years since the 1970s, a pattern observed in all regions. In this way, the developing world in the 2000s resembles more the developed countries in the 1970s than the developing world. There are, however, increasing differences between countries since postponement has been faster in the developed world. Union formation remains almost universal in many regions of the world, with permanent celibacy still low at the global level, but increasing in some parts of the world. Female adolescent marriage and a large age gap between spouses remain high in the least developed countries. Systematic patterns of unbalanced marriage markets characterized by excess male or female celibacy patterns are observed in many countries. Consensual unions are reported in most of the countries of the world with different levels of prevalence, and an effort should be kept at keeping census information relevant by adapting to new patterns of union formation.

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Notes

  1. There are, of course, exceptions: see Smith (1983), United Nations Population Division (1987, 1991, 2000, 2010, 2011a), Therborn (2004), but none of them provides global or regional estimates based on a majority of countries. For developing countries, see Westoff (2003), Mensch and Lloyd (2005), Mensch et al. (2005), whereas for low fertility countries United Nations (2003). There are also regional analyses available, like Castro Martin (2002), Rosero-Bixby et al. (2009), Ruíz Salguero and Rodríguez Vignoli (2011) and Quilodrán Salgado (2011) for Latin America, Lesthaeghe et al. (1989) and Hertrich (2007) for Africa, Rashad and Osman (2003) and Engelen and Puschmann (2011) for Arab countries, Kalmijn (2007) and Sobotka and Toulemon (2008) for Europe, Smith (1980), Jones and Gubhaju (2009) and Jones et al. (2011) for Asia.

  2. The formulae corresponding to permanent celibacy (CEL) and SMAM as a function of the percentage single by age, S i , are the following:

    CEL = min {S 15–19, S 20–24, S 25–29, S 30–34, S 35–39, S 40–44, S 45–49, (S 45–49 + S 50–54)/2}

    SMAM = 15 + 5 [Σ (S i  − CEL)]/(100 − CEL)

    where the sum extends from age 15–19 up to 45–49 or the age at which the minimum proportion single is reached.

  3. While there is broad agreement between the measures (linear correlation of 0.92), the median age at marriage can be much larger than SMAM for countries with high levels of non-marriage: the average difference between SMAM and the median age at marriage is 0.5 for countries with celibacy levels below 5 %, in line with the indirect median, but becomes −5.4 years for countries with celibacy levels above 20 %.

  4. The development classification corresponds to United Nations (2011a); the developed countries include all of Europe plus Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the USA. The group of least developed countries includes the 49 countries defined as such by the United Nations. Developing countries refer to the rest of countries in the less developed regions, without any judgment about their development process.

  5. Countries that do not appear represented in the map might report on consensual unions or cohabitation, but not in the main table on marital status in the census. For instance, France has two separate questions, one on legal marital status and a second one on cohabitation. The problem is that this dual classification scheme cannot be mapped to the standard classification scheme.

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  1. Departamento de Economía e Historia Económica, Edificio FES, Campus Unamuno, Universidad de Salamanca, 37007, Salamanca, Spain

    José Antonio Ortega

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Appendix

Appendix

The data set consists of an expansion of the original World Marriage Data 2008 data set (United Nations 2009). Table 4 provides summaries of data availability at the regional level. Table 5 lists the data points that have been added to the original WMD dataset. There are two instances, Guinea Bissau 2006 and Somalia 2006 that were included in WMD 2008 based on incomplete information from MICS survey reports. They have been replaced by a complete record estimated from MICS microdata. MICS microdata is available from UNICEF at http://www.childinfo.org. Except where noted, the data sources correspond to National Statistics census and survey reports. Data marked as CARICOM comes from the following source:

Table 4 Data availability in the expanded data set
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Table 5 Data points additional to WMD in expanded data set
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CARICOM Capacity Development Programme (CCDP) (2009) 2000 Round Of Population And Housing Census Data Analysis Sub-Project. Volume Of Basic Tables. Georgetown, Guyana: Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.

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Ortega, J.A. A Characterization of World Union Patterns at the National and Regional Level. Popul Res Policy Rev 33, 161–188 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-013-9301-x

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