Same sex marriages in Spain: The case of international unions

Abstract

Marriage between homosexuals has been legally recognised in Spain since 2005. This phenomenon has made visible many couples who lived “underground”, regardless of the nationality of the spouses. The purpose of this article is to discover the main patterns of same-sex marriage in which one spouse is Spanish and the other foreign. The Movimiento Natural de Población (National Population Movement) (MNP) is the source of statistics used in this study, as it has the most up-to-date data on this subject. The data show that, depending on the country of origin of the spouses, same-sex marriages in Spain are more heterogamous than heterosexual marriages. Equally, this greater heterogamy is shown in terms of age, occupation and education level.