Portugal 2016

17 ENQUADRAMENTO POPULACIONAL POPULATION FRAMEWORK In parallel, the number of marriages has followed a downward trend from 2000 onwards, uninterrupted up to 2014. In fact, had it not been for developments in the second half of the 1990s and the decline would have been ongoing since 1991. However, the level at the end of that decade was already lower than at the start. The annual average rate of change between 1990 and 2014 was -3.4%, although from 2000 to 2010 it was already -4.6% and from 2011 to 2014 the decline became more marked, to -5.8%. In the two most recent years the number of marriages recovered, increasing by around 1.5% annually. In 2016 marriages accounted for around 51.0% of those recorded in 2000 (45.2% of the share recorded in 1990). This was mainly due to the number of Catholic weddings, which evolved similarly, although falling more markedly (between 1990 and 2014 the annual average rate of change was -6.2%; in 2014 and 2015 there was also a slight recovery). Up to 2006 the number of Catholic weddings was higher than that of exclusively civil weddings. Thereafter, their share of the total was reversed, to 34.8% in 2016 (64.8% and 72.6% in 2000 and 1990 respectively). A comparison with 1990 and 2000 shows that the number of Catholic weddings accounted for 21.7% and 27.3% of the number recorded in each of these years respectively. In general, the number of divorces followed an opposite trend to that of the number of marriages. In 2016 it was 2.6 times higher than in 1990 and around 1.17 times higher than in 2000. As of 2013 there was a relative stabilisation at an average level of 22,500 cases. The opposite trends of divorces and marriages per year led to a strong increase in their ratio, and thus the average value of this indicator increased over time. The ratio of divorces to marriages peaked at 74.2% in 2011, declining to around 70.0% in the past four years on average. The ratio stood at 30.0% in 2000 (12.2% in 1990).