Only 16% of the Dominican population is married

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, marriages in the country have declined, resulting in more people currently divorcing than marrying, creating a trend that could impact family structure and couple dynamics in Dominican society.

In fact, only 16.0% of the population is formally married, whether by civil registry authorities, by an authority of the Catholic Church, or by another religious denomination.

Furthermore, the group leading this type of union is aged 55 or older, which reveals that younger people are less likely to opt for marriage.

According to the National Statistics Office (ONE), the ENHOGAR-2024 survey indicates that only 1.8% of young people aged 20 to 24 are married. However, the rates are increasing with age. 12.4% of Dominicans aged 30 to 34 are married; 17.7% of people aged 35 to 39 are married; and 19.0% of people aged 40 to 44 are married.

The family socioeconomic level also influences whether people marry, as individuals from the upper middle class (20.1%) or upper class (35.1%) tend to marry more frequently than those from a low (8.2%) or very low (5.6%) socioeconomic level.

Marital status is of utmost importance as a factor determining fertility, due to its impact on female participation in education and the labor market, social assistance policy, housing problems, and the consumption of certain goods and services, among others, according to the ONE.

Similarly, 24.6% of the Dominican population is single, the majority being adolescents and young people between the ages of 15 and 29; 30.8% are in a union, and 18.9% are separated from a common-law relationship.

Early unions

Although child marriage has been prohibited in the Dominican Republic since 2021 through Law No. 1-21, this phenomenon remains a reality for a portion of the child population.

The ONE maintains that women who enter into unions before the age of 18 tend to have more children than those who enter into unions or marry later, and are less likely to receive quality maternal health care services.

1.7% of adolescents aged 15 to 19 reported having married or entered into a union for the first time before their 15th birthday.