@article{Heley_Hewitt_2022, title={Same-sex marriage and remarriage in Australia, 2018-2020}, volume={6}, url={https://www.australianpopulationstudies.org/index.php/aps/article/view/96}, DOI={10.37970/aps.v6i1.96}, abstractNote={<p class="APSAbstracthead2"><strong>Background</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;Since same-sex marriage was legalised in Australia in December 2017, thousands of same-sex couples have married. Little Australian research to date has examined same-sex marriage trends and how they are similar or different to different-sex marriages.</p> <p class="APSAbstracthead2"><strong>Aims</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;To describe trends in same-sex marriages and remarriages in Australia for the years 2018–2020, comparing and contrasting with different-sex marriages and remarriages by age and sex.</p> <p class="APSAbstracthead2"><strong>Data and methods</strong> &nbsp;Data come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics publication <em>Marriage and Divorces, Australia</em>. We use available data on different-sex and same-sex marriages and remarriages for age and sex.</p> <p class="APSAbstracthead2"><strong>Results</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;The proportion of same-sex marriages declined from 5.5% of total marriages to 3.7% between 2018 and 2020. Same-sex marriages tended to be at older ages, but the age gap between same-sex and different-sex marriages for males and females reduced over time. Similar trends were observed for remarriage. For different-sex remarriages, there was a slightly higher proportion of males remarrying than females. In contrast, for same-sex remarriages, the proportion of females remarrying was double that of same-sex males.</p> <p class="APSAbstracthead2"><strong>Conclusions</strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;Early trends suggest same-sex marriages and remarriages occurred at older ages than different-sex. This age gap reduced over time, suggesting that early adopters of same-sex marriage may be a different group. Interestingly, same-sex remarriage was much more common for females. Given that same-sex marriage was not legal in Australia until late 2017, it is likely that many of their first marriages were different-sex. This has received little attention in the research literature to date and requires further investigation.</p&gt;}, number={1}, journal={Australian Population Studies}, author={Heley, Emma and Hewitt, Belinda}, year={2022}, month={Jul.}, pages={1-14} }