An increasing number of Filipinos are embracing cohabitation as couples in live-in arrangements now make up nearly 15% of the population — higher than the 9% observed in 2015, according to the latest government census.
At least five million more unmarried Filipino couples moved in together in 2020 compared to 2015, showing that more Filipinos are favoring common-law partnerships, based on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)’s 2020 household census.
Among the different regions, the National Capital Region has the highest share of common-law arrangements (20%), while the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao recorded the smallest proportion of live-in partners (0.8%), the PSA also found.
Still highly taboo for many Filipinos, live-in partners are legally recognized in the Philippines as common law marriages, although with fewer rights than couples with marriage licenses.
Meanwhile, the number of married Filipinos increased by 1.5 million from 2015 to 2020, while more than 400,000 individuals divorced, separated or annulled their marriage, according to PSA data.
The region with the largest proportion of married couples is Cagayan Valley region at around 47%, while Eastern Visayas region tallied the lowest share of married individuals at 34%.
More single men than women, while more females are widows and divorcees
In total, among the 86 million Filipinos included in the 2020 census, around 34.3 million were never married – slightly higher than the 33.9 million married Filipinos.
The PSA also found a decline of four percentage points in single or never-married persons from 2015 to 2020. Specifically, only 40% of the population was single in 2020 compared to nearly 44% in 2015.
The PSA said that among the never-married individuals, a higher proportion of males (54%) than females (46%) were observed in 2020. Specifically, nearly 19 million males were single compared to around 16 million single females in 2020.
Meanwhile, widowed and divorced/separated/annulled females accounted for a higher share of the total compared to males, at 76% and 60%, respectively.
There were at least 2.9 million widowed females in 2020 compared to around 931,000 males. Meanwhile, among those divorced/separated/annulled, 989,000 were females while 655,000 were males.
These observations by the PSA are based on its estimated household population of individuals aged ten years old and over, which is around 86 million out of the total 108 million population of the country.
Source: Philstar
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