Vital events. Marriages
Statistical activity code: 30201
Number of marriages registered during a calendar year and distribution of marriages by demographic characteristics of newly married persons. The indicators are published in absolute and relative terms (as rates). Newly married persons by type of settlement, place of residence and month of marriage, by sex, age group, ethnic nationality, educational level, socio-economic status, first married and remarried persons, former marital status, number of common under-age children. | |
Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK) Classification of Ethnicities International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011) Country of Citizenship List | |
Newly married persons and contracted marriages | |
Administrative unit – a unit based on administrative division, the name, type and boundaries of which are determined by law and other legislation, and in the territory of which state or local government administration is carried out. The administrative units of the territory of Estonia are counties, rural municipalities and cities. City settlement region – neighbouring settlements where most inhabitants live in regions where population density is greater than 1,000 inhabitants per km2 and the population figure is greater than 5,000. Grid map data have been used for determining regions based on population density and figure. See settlement region. Crude marriage rate – the number of registered marriages per 1,000 of mean annual population. Date of occurrence of vital event – the exact date when the event occurred, which does not depend on the date of registration of the event. Date of registration of vital event – the date the vital event was registered at the registry offices. Duration of marriage in years – the legal length of marriage in full years. Ethnic nationality – a person's belonging to an ethnic group based on self-determination of the person. As a rule, ethnic nationality is consistent throughout a person's life. A child’s ethnic nationality is determined by the parents; if a child’s (aged 0–17) ethnic nationality is not available in the population register, the mother’s ethnic nationality is assigned to the child. First marriage – the first marriage of a male or female. Mean annual population – arithmetic mean of the population number at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year (beginning of the next year), rounded to a whole number. Used in the calculation of rates associated with vital events during a year. Place of residence – a place where a person resides as at the beginning of the year according to his/her statement or according to the population register. Rural settlements – small towns and villages. Used in the tables that follow the administrative division prior to the 2017 administrative reform. Rural settlement region – neighbouring settlements where population density is lower than 200 inhabitants per km2 or a region with higher population density where the population figure is under 5,000. Grid map data have been used for determining regions based on population density and figure. See settlement region. Settlement region – a territorial unit consisting of settlements with the same population density. Settlement regions are divided into city settlement regions, town settlement regions and rural settlement regions based on population density and population figure. In the case of a division into two, city and town settlement regions are added. The division is applied since 2018. The data for the years back to 2015 have been recalculated. More information is available at: http://metaweb.stat.ee/get_classificator_file.htm?id=4601461&siteLanguage=ee. Settlement unit – administrative units (rural municipalities and cities) are divided into settlement units. Settlement units are settlements: cities, city districts, towns, small towns and villages. Town settlement region – neighbouring settlements where most inhabitants live in regions where population density is 200–1,000 inhabitants per km2 and the population figure is greater than 5,000, but which do not constitute a city settlement region because of the population density. Grid map data have been used for determining regions based on population density and figure. See settlement region. Urban settlements – cities, cities without municipal status and towns. Used in the tables that follow the administrative division prior to the 2017 administrative reform. | |
Marriage Person | |
Marriages contracted in Estonia and in the Estonian representations abroad, whereby at least one of the spouses is a permanent resident of Estonia FRAME All persons who were newly married in the given year (based on the Population Register) | |
Estonia as a whole Administrative units Counties | |
1992–… | |
Not applicable |
DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2013 on European demographic statistics (Text with EEA relevance) OTHER LEGAL ACTS Not available OTHER AGREEMENTS Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat) United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. | |
The treatment of confidential data is regulated by the Procedure for Protection of Data Collected and Processed by Statistics Estonia (in Estonian). See more details on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section Õigusaktid. |
Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month). | |
All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar. |
Not published | |
Not published | |
Data are published in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject area “Population / Population indicators and composition / Main demographic indicators” in the following tables: RV047: Marriages and divorces RV048: Total first marriage rate and mean age at first marriage by sex and under the subject area “Population / Vital events / Marriages” in the tables RV02–RV287U. Discontinued datasets RV26, RV264–RV287 are in the subject area “Discontinued datasets / Population. Archive / Vital events. Archive”. | |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes. | |
Data serve as input for statistical activity 50101 “Regional development”. | |
Implementation of the residency index in demographic statistics | |
Not available |
To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act. | |
Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions. |
Ministry of Social Affairs Ministry of the Interior Estonian Institute for Population Studies National Institute for Health Development | |
Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys. | |
Use of administrative data ensures complete coverage and timeliness data. |
Using administrative data ensures data accuracy. If necessary, the data are completed and cleaned in Statistics Estonia using other administrative registers (Population Register, Register of Education). | |
Not applicable | |
In statistics, the marriages in which at least one of the spouses is a permanent resident of Estonia are counted. As the required registered residence data are received from residency index and the Population Register, the number of marriages counted in statistics depends on the data quality of residency index and the Population Register. |
The use of internationally common methodology allows for the comparison of data collected under the regulation. The data on contracted marriages and persons getting married have been compiled using the same basic data and uniform data processing methodology. This will ensure comparability of data in the country by administrative units. The most detailed data are available for the municipalities. | |
The data are comparable throughout the time series. The length of the time series varies, but the data in the same database tables have been compiled on the basis of similar definitions. The length of the time series depends on the importance of sharing events in society on the basis of one or another indicator, but also on the availability of relevant data. Based on the length of the time series, the data can be divided into four groups: 1) the most general data from 1922 onwards; 2) the distinction between first marriage and remarriage since 1950; 3) Addition of a large group of indicators (age, place of residence, common children) at the beginning of the 1990s; 4) The change in the place of residence indicator after the administrative reform (tables with index U) since 2017. For the period 1994-2017, there are statistics available on previous cohabitation or pre-marital cohabitation. | |
The common methodology is used to process raw data of all vital events (statistical activities 30201 “Vital events. Marriages”, 30202 “Vital events. Divorces”, 30203 “Vital events. Abortion”, 30204 “Vital events. Migration”, 30205 “Vital events. Deaths and causes of death”, 30206 “Vital events. Births”), which will ensure comparability of the data. Data related to a person (e.g. place of residence, marital status, nationality, country of birth, citizenship, education) are calculated once and linked to the table of the respective event in the database. | |
Data related to a person (e.g. place of residence, marital status, nationality, country of birth, citizenship, education) are calculated once and linked to the table of the respective event in the database to ensure comparability of the data. Statistical indicators in the table form groups of characteristics that are comparable across tables. For example, first marriage or remarriage, whether there are common children or not. |
The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia. | |
The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available. |
SURVEY DATA Not used ADMINISTRATIVE DATA Data on contracted marriages and newly married persons are received from the Population Register of the Ministry of the Interior. DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES Data from statistical activity 30101 “Population” are used (to calculate the rates). | |
Annual Monthly | |
Data are collected by the vital statistics offices of county governments, Tallinn Vital Statistics Department and by ministers of religion registering the contraction of marriage. At the vital statistics offices of county governments and Tallinn Vital Statistics Department, the collected data are entered into the Population Register upon making a vital statistics entry. (As data sources, the information provided in the application for marriage and the submitted documents are used.) Ministers of religion registering the contraction of marriage forward their data to the vital statistics offices of county governments or Tallinn Vital Statistics Department. Foreign missions of Estonia transmit the data on the marriages contracted over the year to the Population Facts Department of the Ministry of the Interior in February of the following year at the latest. On the 7th working day after the end of the reporting month, the Population Register transmits the data to Statistics Estonia. Data from the Population Register are received via the X-Road. | |
The validation process includes comparison with the data of previous periods or other surveys and with administrative data sources. The data of newly married persons (personal identification codes and names) and registered marriage certificate data are used upon data collection for data checking, cleaning and adjustment. If necessary, the accuracy of event's data is checked against the data in the Population Register and compared with data collected into the Statistical Database from previous events. | |
A marriage is included in the total number of marriages in Estonia, if a) the marriage was registered in Estonia and at least one of the parties was a permanent resident of Estonia at the beginning or at the end of the reference year, or b) the marriage was registered abroad and at least one of the parties was a permanent resident of Estonia at the beginning and at the end of the reference year. Marriages of prior years are not taken into account (even if they were missing in the data of the relevant year). | |
Not applied |