When is the Marrying-est Month among Pinoys?

Statistically Speaking v.2.0

By Romulo A. Virola [E1]

Those of you who are vintage “Dekada 70” probably still wax romantic about your children getting married in June but do the millennials factor that at all into their wedding plans? Will a June wedding be still part of the post COVID-19 normal?

The tradition of a June wedding dates back to Roman times as “Juno” was the Roman goddess of love and marriage. In fact, in the old days, the term ‘honeymoon’ referred to the first Moon after the summer solstice which happens around June 21. It’s also a traditional name for the full moon for June. And of course, as the song “June Bride” from the movie “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” goes, “Oh, they say when you marry in June you’re a bride all your life, and the bridegroom who marries in June gets a sweet-heart for a wife”. [E2]

So, for those of you who have such a wonderfully positive attitude in life and are still dreaming to be June brides (or grooms) at age 50, or to be June stage mothers (or fathers), you may find useful the latest civil registration data from the PSA for the period 2014–2018 [E3]….

• The marrying-est month of the year is certainly not November! How unromantic naman if the renewal of the “Till Death Do Us Part” vows is to be commemorated during the araw/buwan ng mga patay, di ba?
• After declining from 2015 to 2016, the No. of Marriages per thousand females aged 15 to 44 increased in 2017 and 2018, as the no. of marriages grew faster than the population of women in child-bearing ages [E4]. Dr. Juan Antonio A. Perez III, Executive Director of the Commission on Population and Development may not be too happy with this.

No. of Marriages/000 females aged 15–44 years old

• During the 5 years from 2014–2018, the average number of marriages was 36,215 per month or 1,190 per day or 99 per hour assuming a 12-hour working day for wedding officiants. Since wedding fees range from PhP 5,000–20,000 (including church decorations), that can amount up to PhP 8.7 billion or 0.05% of Philippine GDP [E5]. Considering the expected recession in 2020 as a result of COVID-19,[E6] more marriages can surely help the economy, right, OIC NEDA Director General Karl?

Ave. No. of Marriages Per Month

Ave. No. of Marriages Per Day

• The weighted average age at marriage is almost 30 years for men and almost 27 years for women. The good news for Dr. Perez is that for both bride and groom, the average age at marriage has been consistently increasing albeit slowly, during the last 5 years, breaching age 30 for men in 2018. In fact, in 2003, the median age at first marriage for women was only about 22 years. [E7]. This means fewer fertility years for the mother and should augur well for population planning. However, would wedding guests like to see many blushing brides aged 50 in June 2222?

And can anybody explain why the average age at marriage for both groom and bride is highest in February (free mass wedding daw is available on Feb. 14, meaning older persons are more kuripot or more romantic?) and lowest in April (those young April fools!!)?

Average Age at Marriage By Month

• Incidentally, statistical offices usually compute life expectancy at birth. Come to think of it, shouldn’t wedding coordinators, marriage counsellors, life plan product developers and actuaries be also interested in life expectancy at marriage? For business reasons!
• And now for statistics that can be useful in the wedding industry, let us see what the favorite month of Filipino couples planning to say “I hope he/she does” has been during the five years from 2014 to 2018:

— As already mentioned, most couples dread getting married in November with a share of only 5.09% of all marriages. Other least favorite months are the rainy days of August (5.61%), July (6.10%), and September (6.38%).

— You might be surprised to know that June has only the 5th biggest share (9.19%) of marriages from 2014–2018 among the 12 months of the year

— Aside from June, the more favored months are January (8.88%) and April (10.53%)

— But the top favorites are February (10.80%), May (11.26%), and December [E8] when most couples marry with a weighted average share of 11.44% of all the marriages. December 8 (Immaculate Conception) daw is a favorite date for couples for divine intervention. Or could it be that in December, wedding guests are more in a mood to attend…or errr…are more generous with their gifts?

— In 2003, however, the favorite months were May, December, and January, while the least favorite were August and November. [E7]

Still want to get married in June?

[E1]: Romulo A. Virola is formerly with the Actuarial Research and Development Group of the GSIS, and a former Professorial Lecturer in the Graduate Programs of the Statistical Center/School of Statistics and the Department of Mathematics (now the Institute of Mathematics) of the University of the Philippines . He retired in 2012 as Secretary General of the then National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) of the Philippines or NSCB (now part of the Philippine Statistics Authority). He finished his BS (Mathematics) from UP, and MS (Actuarial Mathematics) and PhD (Statistics) from the University of Michigan, where he was a Fellow in its Sampling Program for Foreign Statisticians under the late Prof. Leslie Kish, author of the pioneering “Survey Sampling”, considered by many as the bible in the field. He used to write/co-write the Statistically Speaking articles posted on the NSCB website from 2004 until his retirement. The author thanks his former colleagues in the National Statistical System (NSS) of the Philippines particularly from the NSCB, Jay Mendoza of IOM, UN Migration Agency and some FB adviser-friends for the assistance and support in preparing this paper.

Images sourced from: https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/infographic'>Infographic vector created by freepik — www.freepik.com</a>

[E2]: www.almanac.com. Loew’s, Inc. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a 1954 American musical film, directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and choreography by Michael Kidd, starring Nancy Kilgas, Jane Powell. The summer solstice occurs when the Sun is directly overhead the Tropic of Cancer, and travels the longest path through the sky providing that day with the most daylight.

[E3] SS2v.2.0 is grateful to DNS Rosalinda P. Bautista, Ms. Aurora Reolalas of the Vital Statistics Division and Ms. Simonette A. Nisperos of the Knowledge Management and Communications Division of the PSA for sharing its available civil registration data. PSA Population projections are based on the 2015 Census of Population.

[E4]: The United Nations defines women’s reproductive ages to be 15–49. But child-bearing at advanced ages puts the mother at greater risk so we decided to use 15–44.

[E5]: The PSA estimated Philippine GDP in 2019 at PhP 18,613,044 million in current prices. https://psa.gov.ph/nap-press-release/node/145079

[E6]: The IMF projects Philippine GDP to shrink by 3.6% compared to the government estimate of 2–3.4% decline. However, the IMF expects the GDP to bounce back in 2021 with a 6.8% growth. https://business.inquirer.net/300832/imf-sees-ph-economy-shrinking-3-6-in-2020#ixzz6QKIZ1dqU

[E7]: Fertility rate refers to he level of fertility at which a cohort of women on the average are having only enough children to replace themselves and their partner in the population. In the country, a total fertility rate of 2.1 is considered to be replacement level. “Are Marriage Patterns of Pinoys Changing?” Statistically Speaking, February 2008 by Dr. Romulo A. Virola

[E8]: However, in December 2016, December was only 6th favorite. We are trying to seek an explanation from the PSA for this.