Marriage in fashion? Trend reversal in marriage formation in Sweden

Sofi Ohlsson, Stockholm University

Sweden has seen a reversal in marriage trends, from mainly declining marriage rates since the 1960's to increasing rates from 1998 and onwards. This is a country that in many aspects has been a forerunner in the development of new trends in family-demographic behavior. By applying event-history techniques to Swedish register data, this study examines whether the trend reversal is related to compositional changes in various socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the population, with special focus on childbearing. Only first marriages of women are studied as these largely represent the marriage trends in general. The results show that the recent reversal can only partly be ascribed to compositional changes, more specifically to changes in income, labor-market attachment and childbearing. Thus, there is evidence of a new marriage trend in Sweden that does not conform very well to that of generally declining marriage rates as is often depicted in demographic literature.