The survey on marriages
The survey on marriages, was established in 1926. It is an individual and exhaustive survey, which collects the data of all the marriages celebrated in Italy and it allows the analysis of the phenomenon of nuptiality in relation to the main socio-demographic characteristics of the spouses. The survey uses the Istat D.3 model, compiled by the officer of the municipality where the marriage was celebrated. The model is divided into two parts: the first one collects the information about the marriage: the date, the rite of celebration (religious or civil), and the common property regime chosen by the couple (joint or separated ownership of property); the second one collects information about the spouses: date of birth, place of birth, place of residence at the time of marriage, future place of residence of the spouses, marital status, education level, occupational status, professional position, sector of economic activity, citizenship.
The most recent changes to the model were made in 1995, with the inclusion of the property regime variable, in 1997 with the refinement of information on citizenship, asking to specify, when Italian, whether "by birth" or "acquired," and in 2018, with the collection of the municipality of birth (previously only the province was recorded), the names and surnames of the spouses, and the introduction of greater detail in the classifications of marital status and educational qualifications.
The data collected through the survey has been published in the Yearbook of Demographic Statistics until the year of survey 1987 and, from 1988 to 2003, in the Yearbook of Marriages, Separations, and Divorces. The data update is accompanied by an informative note that illustrates the main results (Marriage in Italy from 2004 to 2013, Marriages, Separations, and Divorces in 2014 and 2015, Birth and Fertility of the Resident Population in 2016 and 2017, Marriages and Civil Unions in 2018, and Marriages, Civil Unions, Separations, and Divorces from 2019).
Glossary
Divorced: Spouses who have obtained the dissolution of marriage under the law of December 1, 1970.
Average age at first marriage: Average age of never married spouses, weighted by specific nuptiality rates.
Average age at marriage by marital status: Average age of spouses, weighted by specific nuptiality rates by age and marital status.
Divorced same sex civil partners: Spouses who have obtained the dissolution of the civil partnership under the law of May 20, 2016, no. 76.
Total nuptiality rate: Sum of the specific nuptiality rates of spouses for each single year of age, multiplied by one thousand.
First nuptiality rate: Sum of the specific nuptiality rates of never married spouses for each single age.
Nuptiality rate: The ratio of marriages celebrated in the year to the average resident population of the same year, multiplied by one thousand.
Specific nuptiality rate: The ratio of spouses of age x to the average resident male/female population of the same age, multiplied by one thousand. Specific rates can also be calculated by marital status.
Property regime: Marriage automatically establishes the property regime of Community of Property (legal community), introduced by the Family Law Reform of 1975. With separation of property (art. 215 Civil Code), each spouse retains exclusive ownership of the assets acquired during the marriage.
Civil rite: A civil marriage is a marriage celebrated in a municipality, or in an institutional hall belonging to the municipality, in front of a civil status officer.
Religious rite: A religious marriage is a marriage celebrated in front of ministers of the Catholic faith (governed by the civil code and regulated by the agreements between the Holy See and the Italian State - Lateran Treaty of 1929) or ministers of other religious denominations recognized by the Italian State.
Spouses in their second or subsequent marriage (percentage): Marriages of widows/widowers, divorced spouses, widows/widowers of same sex civil partnership (since 2018), Divorced of same sex civil partnership (since 2018) out of the total number of marriages.