E6K+Table+Chart_Edward

The table shows the Australia Bureau of Statistics’ marriage data in 1981 and in 2002. The overall trend indicates that the number of registered marriages had reduced, whilst the average age of brides and grooms, number of divorces and percentage of couples who cohabited had all increased significantly. The numbers of registered marriages and divorces in 1981 were 113,905 and 41,412, but in 2002 these numbers had changed to 105,400 and 55,330. The average age of brides in 1981 was 23.3 year and average age of groom was 25.9 year, these numbers had increased to 29 year and 31 year in 2002. Finally, the percentage of couples who lived together before marriage had jumped from 42% to 73% during the 22 years. Focusing on the reasons why these trends had occurred, the first may be the role of women in the workplace had changed while more people started to pay attention to education and career. Women preferred office works instead of house works, as a result they became more independent than in the past. The second reason might have been that divorces and defacto relationships had become more socially acceptable. People were not afraid of the pressures from society any more, they treated happiness as the most important thing and pursued it bravely.