Average age women get married in Germany 1991-2023

in 2023, on average, women in Germany got married sometime after turning 32 years old. The graph confirms that marriage took place later and later every year. Various reasons may contribute to this development. 

Life today

Women can simply afford, in various senses of the word, to marry later than before. Being unmarried, regardless of age, has mostly ceased to be stigmatized or unusual for women in Germany. This does not exclude pressure, attention or curiosity from others about the topic, or a woman’s relationship status. It also does not exclude the desire of women to get married. However, in general, attitudes have relaxed significantly in recent decades, nor are there any legal restrictions for unmarried women in terms of education, employment, healthcare, renting or owning property. Women’s life expectancy at birth has increased steadily in Germany, with the latest figures citing 83.2 years. It is also not unusual for Germans to have children outside of a marriage. In fact, figures have been climbing annually since the 1990s and in 2023, around a third of children born, were born outside a marriage. Whether this happens due to a decision made mutually, individually or other circumstances, a woman being shunned for having a child out of wedlock is definitely a thing of the past. 

Changing demographics

Marrying at a later age than in the 1990s, when women got married in their mid to late twenties, is also part of a general demographic shift in Germany, such as the increase in single households (though it does not necessarily mean that the person is unmarried, they might be in a long-distance marriage, for example). Women may also still be studying or traveling before their thirties, preferring to concentrate on concluding these chapters in their lives before proceeding to marriage, especially if they do not yet have a full-time job.