Marital Status and Fertility

Marital Status and Fertility

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia publishes two books with the final results of the 2022 Census of Population, Households and Dwellings:

• Book 5. „Marital Status“ that contains data on the population of the Republic of Serbia aged 15 and over according to the common law martial status, sex and age, and those on the population living in consensual union, by sex and age, by municipalities and cities, and
• Book 6. „Fertility“ that contains data on the population aged 15 and over by number of liveborn children, sex and age, by municipalities and cities.

In addition, the dissemination database contains also the published data on the population aged 15 and by calendar year of birth, sex and marital status, and those on the population aged 15 and over by number of liveborn children, sex, age and ethnic affilitation, by regions.  

 

Marital status

Data on legal marital status

The results of the 2022 Census indicate that about half of the population aged 15 and over are married (51%), almost a third (31%) never married, 11.6% are widowed and 6.1% are divorced persons.

 

	Total	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female
REPUBLIC OF SERBIA	5 691 551	2 739 739	2 951 812	100	100	100
Never married	1 765 403	1 004 774	760 629	31,02	36,67	25,77
Married	2 904 402	1 444 770	1 459 632	51,03	52,73	49,45
Widowed	661 418	135 397	526 021	11,62	4,94	17,82
Divorced	347 079	147 906	199 173	6,10	5,40	6,75
Unknown	13 249	6 892	6 357	0,23	0,25	0,22

Observed by sex, the largest differences are noted in the share of the not married and widowed persons. Namely, 36.7% of men aged 15 and over have never married, while among women aged 15 and over 25.8% have never married. On the other hand, among women aged 15 and over, 17.8% are widowed, while only 4.9% of men in same age group are widowed.

 

In the period between the two last censuses (2011-2022) the share of married persons decreased – from 55% (2011 Census) to 51% (2022 Census), while the share of not married persons increased – from 28% (2011 Census) to 31% (2022 Census). The share of divorced persons went up by about 1% – from 4.9% (2011 Census) to 6.1% (2022 Census), while the share of the widowed remained unchanged relative to the previous census.

Data by municipalities and cities – 2022 Census

Municipalities with the largest share of married are folloving five:  Preševo (60.6%), Bujanovac (59.5%), Аleksandrovac (59.3%), Prijepolje (59.0%) and Raška (58.9%). The largest share of not married persons was noted in the city municipalities of the City of Belgrade – Stari grad (38.4%), Zvezdara (38.0%), Vračar (37.8%), Palilula (37.1%) and Voždovac (36.2%) and in City of Novi Sad (36%), while the share of divorced persons is the largest in Subotica (8.9%), Bečej (8.7%), Senta (8.6%), Zaječar (8.3%) and in the Belgrade municipalities Stari grad (8.3%) and Vračar (8.2%).

Data on persons living in consensual union

The results of the 2022 Census indicate that of the total number of 5 691 551 persons aged 15 and over, 277 140 (4.87%) live with a partner in consensual union. Their average age is 42.38 years.

Observed by sex, there are 138 933 men and 138 207 women who live in consensual union. The age of men in consensual union is, on average, 44 years, and that of women about 41.

 

 

In the period between the two last censuses, the share of the persons living in consensual union in the population aged 15 and over increased from 3.83% (2011 Census) to 4.87% (2022 Census).

Data by  municipalities and cities – 2022 Census

The largest share of persons living in consensual union in the total population aged 15 and over is noted in: Мајdanpek (10.5%), Kovin and Žagubica (9.5%), Bela Crkva (8.8%), Požarevac (8.7%) and Srbobran (8.5%).

The smallest share of persons living in consensual union is in the municipalities of Preševo, Prijepolje and Trgovište (under 1%),  Raška and Mali Zvornik (1.0%) and Sjenica and Ljubovija (1.2%).

 

Fertility

Data on the number of liveborn children are collected for women in all the censuses over the period 1948–2022. It is in the 2022 Census that men were asked for the first time about the number of liveborn children.

Number of liveborn children	Republic of Serbia		Male		Female
	Total	%	Total	%	Total	%
Republic of Serbia	5 691 551	100	2 739 739	100	2 951 812	100
Without children	1 760 588	30,93	1 002 736	36,60	757 852	25,67
1 child	1 025 192	18,01	443 443	16,19	581 749	19,71
2	2 263 716	39,77	999 430	36,48	1 264 286	42,83
3	491 997	8,64	224 710	8,20	267 287	9,06
4	99 124	1,74	45 346	1,66	53 778	1,82
5  and more children	37 904	0,67	16 727	0,61	21 177	0,72
Unknown	13 030	0,23	7 347	0,27	5 683	0,19
Average number of liveborn children	1,35		1,24		1,44

The results of the 2022 Census indicate that almost a third of the population aged 15 and over do not have liveborn children (the share of persons without children is 31%), 18% have one child, about 40% have two children, 8.64% have three children and 2.4% have four or more liveborn/biological children.

There are considerable differences in the number of liveborn children among men and women. Among men, the share of persons without children and with two children is almost equal (about 36%), followed by men with one biological child (16.2%) and with three children (8,2%). Among women aged 15 and over the largest share is noted among those who gave birth to two children (42.8%), followed by women who have never given birth (25.7%), women with one child (19.7%) and women with three liveborn children (9.1%).

The share of persons with more than three liveborn children is extremely low in both sexes (2.3% among men and 2.5% among women).

Data on the number of liveborn children by sex and age indicate that the shares of persons who did not participate in reproduction are extremely high in the age groups 15–19 and 20–24  both for men and women, which is expected, especially at the beginning of the fertile period. Difference in the reproductive behavior of men and women are most pronounced in the age groups 25–29 and 30–39. Namely, 37.5% of women aged 25–29 gave birth to at least one child, while among men of the same age group only 19% have children. In the age group 30–39 there are 29% of women without children, while the percentage of men of the same age group without children is 48%. The share of persons without children in the age group 40–49 is 16% among women and 27.3% among men.

 

Male
Age	Without children	1 child	2 children	3 children	4 children	5 children and more
15–19	99,59	0,31	0,05	0,01	0,00	–
20–24	95,55	3,07	0,93	0,22	0,06	0,01
25–29	81,11	11,55	5,49	1,24	0,36	0,12
30–39	48,07	20,45	23,24	6,21	1,31	0,43
40–49	27,29	19,59	38,76	11,04	2,24	0,72
50–59	20,05	18,53	46,48	11,41	2,36	0,86
60 and over	10,02	17,81	58,16	10,79	2,08	0,87
Female
Age	Without children	1 child	2 children	3 children	4 children	5 children and more
15–19	98,24	1,36	0,31	0,04	0,00	–
20–24	86,90	8,41	3,38	0,90	0,27	0,06
25–29	62,42	19,16	13,32	3,65	1,03	0,33
30–39	29,08	23,71	33,96	10,12	2,26	0,73
40–49	16,11	22,56	45,49	12,27	2,53	0,86
50–59	12,16	20,31	52,69	11,63	2,18	0,85
60 and over	7,77	21,25	58,33	9,66	1,84	0,87

Data on the number of liveborn children of women aged 50–59 indicate that every eight woman who is out of the fertility period does not participate to reproduction, i.e. 12.2% of women did not give livebirth up to the age of 49. On the other hand, every five men aged 50–59 does not have own biological children, i.e. 20% are without children.

Data by municipalities and cities – 2022 Census

The largest average number of liveborn children is noted in Majdanpek, Tutin, Sjenica, Preševo, Prijepolje, Bojnik and Novi Pazar (more than 1.6 children, on average), while the smallest number of liveborn children is in the city municipalities of the City of Belgrade – Stari grad, Vračar, Savski venac, Zvezdara, Novi Beograd, Voždovac, Palilula, as well as among the population of Novi Sad (less than 1.2 children, on average).

Links:

Book 5: Marital Status

Table 1. Population aged 15 and over by marital status, age and sex

Table 2. Population aged 15 and over living in consensual union, by age, sex, by areas

Table 3. Population aged 15 and over by year of birth, sex and marital status, by regions

 

Book 6: Fertility

Table 1. Population aged 15 and over by sex, age and number of liveborn children

Table 2. Population aged 15 and over by number of liveborn children, sex, age and ethnic affiliation, by regions