The National Statistics Institute (INE) has published the second part of the 2023 Vital Statistics Yearbook, covering marriages and Civil Union Agreements that took place in Chile, which complements the information published in May of this year regarding births and deaths.

The document—the result of a collaboration between the INE and the Civil Register and Identification Service (SRCeI)—examines a year marked by rapid demographic change and shifts in family structures, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The document shows the pandemic’s impact on the number and characteristics of marriages and Civil Union Agreements (CUAs), which provide a clearer picture of how the health and social situation has influenced couples’ decisions to formalize their relationships.

In 2023, a total of 11,750 Civil Union Agreements (CUAs) were registered nationwide, reaching a crude rate of 5.9 CUAs per 10,000 inhabitants, the highest level in both absolute and relative terms since this legal institution was established in 2015, surpassing the 8,917 CUAs and the rate of 4.5 per 10,000 recorded in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 31.8% in 2023, or 2,833 more CUAs.

It should be noted that the social and health restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a decline in 2020, when the number of CUAs fell to 5,328 and the rate dropped to 2.7 per 10,000.

However, the rapid recovery in 2021 and the new surge recorded in 2023 show that interest in this type of agreement did not simply remain steady; it increased significantly. This trend continued in subsequent years, according to provisional figures for 2024 and 2025 that have already been published, which show 16,266 and 19,700 CUAs, respectively.

The Metropolitan Region accounts for the largest absolute number, 5,665 CUAs (at 48.2%, equivalent to nearly half of the national total) and a crude rate of 6.8 CUAs per 10,000 people, which exceeds the national average.

Meanwhile, 64,457 marriages were registered in the country, corresponding to a crude marriage rate (CMR) of 3.2 marriages per 1,000 inhabitants, which represents a 6.2% decrease compared to 2022, when the number of marriages stood at 68,707. This data shows that the number of marriages fell again after the significant recovery that occurred in 2022 as a result of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, despite the year-on-year decrease in marriages, the number of marriages remains higher than in the years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is similar to the figures observed in 2011 and 2014.

From a long-term perspective, the 2023 figure falls far short of historical highs, such as the more than 103,000 marriages registered in 1989 or the CMR figures exceeding 8 per 1,000 inhabitants during the 1970s and 1980s, the CMR of 3.2 marriages per 1,000 inhabitants in 2023 approximates the figure for 2019, the year immediately preceding the COVID-19 pandemic.

When analyzing crude marriage rates by region, Antofagasta stands out as having the highest rate in the country at 3.8 per thousand inhabitants, which is significantly higher than the other regions and the national average (3.2 per thousand). In addition, the rates in the Metropolitan Region (3.4) and the regions of Valparaíso, Biobío, and Magallanes (3.3) are all higher than the national average. On the other hand, the lowest rates were observed in Aysén (2.7) and Coquimbo (2.5), indicating a lower number of marriages relative to their populations.

The Vital Statistics Yearbook (Anuario de Estadísticas Vitales) can be found at INE’s Vital Statistics web page.