The number of transnational married couples last year was up 77.6 percent compared with 2022 as COVID-19 has eased globally, the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior showed.
The ministry data also showed a reversal of the downward trend in the number of married couples in the past 10 years. The number peaked in 2015, when 154,346 couples were registered. The number fell consecutively to 147,861 in 2016, 138,034 in 2017, 135,043 in 2018, 134,524 in 2019, 121,702 in 2020 and 114,606 in 2021.
The number of couples who married rebounded to 124,997 in 2022 and to 125,192 last year, the data showed.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Of the couples registered last year, 121,993 were heterosexual couples and 3,199 were same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, 82.05 percent of the marriages were between Taiwanese nationals, while 17.95 percent were between Taiwanese and foreign nationals.
Among the transnational couples, 8,797 spouses were from Southeast Asian nations, the highest among all foreign spouses, followed by 7,530 spouses from China, Hong Kong and Macao.
Meanwhile, 5,435 Vietnamese spouses were registered, along with 1,110 from the US and 916 from Malaysia, the data showed.
Compared with 2022, the number of foreign spouses rose by 9,819 last year, 4,595 of whom were Chinese and 2,159 were Vietnamese.
Among foreign spouses, 15,128 were women and 7,341 were men.
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