Wedding costs and the Marriage Gap

  • Almost one in three young unmarried UK adults aged 18-30 say they would be more likely to get married if the typical wedding was ‘cheaper, smaller, and didn’t have to include a big meal’, according to our survey conducted for Marriage Week.
  • In terms of who wants to get married among this group, the Marriage Gap between top and bottom social classes is as low as 11%. In terms of who actually marries, our previous research has highlighted a far higher Marriage Gap of 39%.
  • Comparing these two findings, five out of six of those who want to marry in the top social class will do so by the time they have children, whereas fewer than half in the lowest social class will do so.
  • Our survey provides compelling evidence that the cost of the wedding – and not lack of desire to marry – is a serious barrier to marriage for all except the top social classes.

Downloads

Here you can download the Research Briefing Paper as a PDF and the Press Release where it is available.

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