Morgunbladid reports on statistics recently released by Statistics Iceland concerning marriages, divorces and other domestic arrangements.
According to Morgunbladid, 1607 couples got married last year and 560 divorced. 1774 couples registered as co-habiting. Thirteen homosexual couples officially registered their relationships, six female couples and seven male couples.
Morgunbladid quotes Statistics Iceland saying that the marriage rate declined from the mid-eighties into the nineties. 9 out of 10 couples have lived together before getting married. The overall marriage rate is low, as in the other Nordic countries – in the years 2001-2005, there were on average 5.4 marriages per 1000 inhabitants. The divorce rate is also low: In the year 2005, there were 1.9 divorces per 1000 inhabitants.
Approximately 40 per cent of all marriages end in divorce. For comparison, 47 per cent of marriages in Denmark and Norway end in divorce and 53 per cent in Sweden.
