The average age of brides, grooms and first-time mums continue to rise, Saturday 28 May was the most popular day to get married and the number of births to teenage mothers fell to a record low.
These are some of the findings published today by NISRA in the Registrar General’s 101st Annual Report.
8,564 marriages were registered in 2022.
There were 266 same-sex marriages and 28 conversions from civil partnerships to marriage. The average age for brides and grooms increased to 33.9 and 35.7 years respectively, compared with 27.0 years for brides and 28.9 years for grooms in 1992.
July was the most popular month to get married in 2022 and Saturday 28 May was the most popular day, with 99 couples having married on that date. There were 43 civil partnerships registered in 2022 (up from 37 registered in 2021), 9 of which involved male partnerships, 4 involved female partnerships, but the majority, 30, were opposite-sex partnerships.
There were 2,324 divorces granted in 2022. This was an increase on the previous year (2,040), but 20.2 per cent lower than the peak number of 2,913 in 2007.
The report shows that the number of births to teenage mothers (mothers under 20 years of age) continued to fall to a record low at 436 (2.1 per cent) out of the total 20,837 births registered in 2022.
The average age of first-time mums continued to rise, up from 25.7 years in 1992 to 29.3 years in 2022.Â
The average age of all mums similarly rose, from 28.0 years to 31.4 years over the last three decades.
Of the 20,837 births registered (10,642 males and 10,195 females) 47.2 per cent occurred outside of marriage/civil partnership, compared to 22.0 per cent three decades ago. 2022 saw the stillbirth rate decrease from 4.0 per 1,000 births in 2021 to 3.4 per 1,000. A total of 71 stillbirths were registered in Northern Ireland in 2022.
The number of deaths registered in 2022 (17,159) was a 2.3 per cent decrease to the level in 2021 (17,558).
Cancer continued to be the leading cause of death in 2022, accounting for 27.0 per cent of all deaths and was the most common cause of death for both sexes, with diseases of the circulatory system (such as heart disease and cerebrovascular disease) the second most common cause for both (21.9%).
Final figures show that, with the proportion of Covid-19 deaths falling from 10.5 per cent of all deaths in 2021 to 3.8 per cent in 2022, Alzheimer’s and other dementias became the third most common cause of death (11.8 per cent), followed by respiratory disease which accounted for 11.2 per cent of all deaths registered in 2022.
Tragically, there were 203 registered deaths due to suicide (including deaths from self-inflicted injury and events of undetermined intent) in Northern Ireland in 2022, a decrease from 237 in 2021. Males accounted for three quarters of all deaths due to self-inflicted injury (76.8%).
In terms of population, the 2022 mid-year population estimate for Northern Ireland showed an increase from 2021 to 1.91 million (0.3% increase).Â