Same-sex love and marriage will be celebrating its first-year in Taiwan soon, but just how many couples utilized their new right in this initial year?
That’s a question that’s thankfully been answered by the Ministry of Interior. According to the ministry, Taiwan has seen 2,929 same-sex weddings since May 2019. Back then, Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. Of those weddings, 928 involved male couples and 2,011 involved female couples. Geographically, most of these marriages happened in heavily populated areas like New Taipei City. Specifically, 614 happened in that city. Meanwhile, 484 happened in Taipei City and 396 happened in Kaohsiung City.
Though, same-sex marriages are still a small percentage of all marriages in the country. The Central News Agency reports that there have been 134,524 total registered Taiwanese weddings in 2019. When it comes to that last number, Taiwan News reports that the number of marriages countrywide dropped by 0.65 percent in the previous year. This was also the lowest total number in a decade.
More data from the Ministry of Interior found that 21,216 marriages, or 15.77 percent, were between a Taiwanese citizen and a foreign citizen. Within that, 42.45 of those marriages involved citizens from other Southeast Asian countries. Then another 31.57 percent involved a Chinese citizen.
We’ll be interested to see how these numbers change as the years go on. Until then, happy first year of marriage equality to Taiwan!
Source: Taiwan News
