The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the first round of data since the passage of marriage equality in Australia.
The figures show a total of 3,149 marriages between the Marriage Act amendments coming in to effect on 9 December 2017 and 30 June 2018.
Director of the ABS Health and Vitals Statistics Section James Eynstone-Hinkins said the data provides new insights into the demographics of same-sex marriages across Australia.
“There are distinct differences between male and female same-sex marriages that emerge from this data,” Eynstone-Hinkins said.
“There were more female same-sex couples marrying, representing 56.3% (1,773) of the total registrations by 30 June 3019 compared to 43.7% (1,376) for male same-sex couples.”
“In addition, the median age at which male same-sex couples got married was almost 10 years older than females – 48.5 years compared to 39 years.”
The most popular time for same-sex couples to get married was March, accounting for 22.7% (714) of marriages over the six month period.
In the state and territory breakdown New South Wales saw the most marriages with 34.6%, followed by Victoria with 26.2% and Queensland on 18.9%.
Here in Western Australia, 315 same-sex marriages were registered over the time period, accounting for 10% of Australian total. WA had a much higher instance of female same-sex marriages than the national average at 65.4%
The data was released as part of Marriages and Divorces 2017 which also showed that the median age at which females married exceeded 30 (30.1) for the first time, up from 29.3 years in 2007. For males, the median in 2017 was 32.0 years, compared to 31.6 years in 2007.
As in 2016, Queensland continued to have the highest divorce rate of 2.3 divorces per 1,000 estimated resident population (2.2 per 1,000 in 2016) while the Northern Territory again had the lowest divorce rate at 1.6 per 1,000 in 2017 (1.3 per 1,000 in 2016).
