Less marriages, more births out of wedlock: how Malta changed since 1990

The Maltese social landscape is no longer what it was 20 years ago, a set of data issued by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical arm confirms

Since 1990, Maltese society has seen the proportion of marriages decline, while births outside wedlock today have increased radically.

A rarity in 1990, just 1.8% of births were conceived outside marriage. By 1998, Malta was still way below the EU average of 25%, with 7.6% of all births outside marriage. Today however, one in every four live births is outside marriage at 25.5%. The EU’s average is 35.1%.

Taken at face value, the large number of births outside wedlock, point to the changing face of Maltese society. Marriage is still a strong fundamental. At six (6) marriages per 1,000 population, Malta’s marriage rate is amongst the highest in the EU, whose average is 4.9 per 1,000 people.

But it is not as high as that of other Catholic nations, such as Cyprus (7.7) or Eastern bloc countries like Lithuania (7.2), Macedonia (7.2), or even Turkey with 9 per 1,000 population.

Malta last had those levels in 1990, with 7.1 per 1,000 population, and the declined to 6.5 in 1998, signs of the ever increasing tendency of couples to postpone marriage, live together and maybe even have a child.

Cyprus on the other hand, has the lowest rate of births outside marriage – just 8.9% – very low, especially when compared to Iceland, where 64.1% of all births take place outside marriage.

The proportion of live births outside marriage in the EU27 has doubled, from 17.4% in 1990 to 35.1% in 2007. This proportion has increased in all Member States except Denmark, where it remained nearly stable at 46%. More than half of all births were outside marriage in 2008 in Estonia (59.0%), Sweden (54.7%), Slovenia (52.8%), France (52.6%) and Bulgaria (51.1%). The lowest shares were found in Greece (5.9%), Cyprus (8.9%), Italy (17.7%) and Poland (19.9%).