Background
ONS statistics on marriages in England & Wales cover only marriages occurring in England & Wales. There are no reliable official statistics yet of marriages taking place abroad involving England & Wales residents, although ONS have introduced a question on reason for travel into the International Passenger Survey that is hoped will yield usable information. It is also necessary to take into account that marriages within England and Wales will include some marriages of persons who are usually resident abroad.
The market research publisher Mintel produces data on the number of ‘packaged’ weddings abroad (weddings which are organised and paid for as tourism products) where both partners are UK residents. These figures exclude overseas wedding arrangements made independently of tour operators, and also weddings where only one partner is UK resident. Click the link for details of how to obtain the latest Mintel report.
Mintel have made estimates for the period 1998 to 2003. Scaling down from United Kingdom to England & Wales level gives figures gradually rising from about 20,000 in 1998 to 30,000 in 2003 implying that marriages abroad now account for around 10% of all marriages to England & Wales residents and that the number and proportion is growing steadily each year.
If this trend were extrapolated back to 1991, it would suggest a figure of around 150,000 overseas marriages in total between mid-1991 and mid-2001 where both partners were England & Wales residents. This figure is very broadly comparable to the discrepancies between ONS estimates of the married population rolled forward from the 1991 Census and estimates rebased on the 2001 Census. However, this comparability may be coincidental as the discrepancy in the ONS marital status estimates may have other causes. Furthermore, the discrepancy was considerably greater for married males than for married females. One possible contributory reason for this is that there may be more marriages occurring overseas where an England & Wales resident male marries a (previously) overseas resident female than vice versa. But there are other possible sources of error in the estimation of the married population apart from marriages abroad, and it is quite impossible to derive an estimate of marriages abroad from this comparison.
Effect on population estimates and marriage rates
If there are a significant number of marriages abroad involving England & Wales residents, then this would have two main consequences for marital status population statistics. The first is that it would lead to the married population being increasingly underestimated between Censuses, with other marital statuses being overestimated. There are, however, other possible sources of error in marital status population estimates which might act in the same or the opposite direction.
The other main consequence is that marriage rates e.g. the number of first marriages per 1,000 never-married population would be underestimated. Divorce rates (the number of divorces per 1,000 married population) would also be slightly overestimated because of the underestimation of the married population denominator.
Marriages abroad variant
For the 2003-based marital status projections, GAD have run a special ‘marriages abroad’ variant to give a very rough indication of how the future marital status composition of the population might differ if allowance were to be made for marriages abroad.
For the purposes of this variant, GAD have made adjustments to (a) the estimated marriage (and divorce) rates during 1992-2003 and (b) the estimated population by marital status at mid-2003, based on the Mintel data. The adjustments are slightly more conservative than the Mintel estimates might suggest (allowing for there being some marriages of non England & Wales residents included in the ONS marriage statistics which would slightly offset marriages occurring abroad). On the other hand, no allowance has been made for marriages occurring abroad where only one partner was usually resident (at the time of the marriage) in England & Wales.
a) Marriages (and hence marriage rates) have been adjusted by assuming the same distribution by age and previous marital status for the extra estimated marriages abroad as for marriages occurring in England & Wales. This raises marriages and hence marriage rates in 2002 by about 8.5%. It also reduces the downward trend in rates (or, for some older ages, increases the upward trend). Therefore, after extrapolating these trends forward in the same way as was done for the principal projections, assumed marriage rates by 2013 are about 13% higher than they would have been if no adjustment had been made.
b) Consistent adjustments have been made to the estimated population in 2003 (the base for this projection). This gives around 45,000 more married males and females than the official ONS mid-2003 estimates with the other statuses correspondingly reduced (the all status totals at each age are unaffected).
In fact, the results of the marriage abroad variant are very similar to those for the official high marriage variant. Click the link for a table summarizing the results of all the marriage and divorce variants. (Microsoft Excel Document (18kb). You will need Microsoft Excel in order to view this document. If you do not have this, please click the link to go to the Microsoft Download Center from where you can download a copy of the Microsoft Excel Viewer.)