One in four Austrian weddings involve foreigners

Almost a quarter of all the weddings in Austria are binational according to the latest statistics from Statistik Austria.

It said that 23.5 percent of marriages fall into this category were either one partner is an Austrian and the other a foreign national – or both are foreign nationals.

In 2010 that represented 8,823 binational weddings.

The statistics also showed that while the number of foreigners marrying each other in Austria has remained relatively constant, the number of Austrians marrying foreigners has fallen significantly.

In 2004 it was 27.8 percent but the latest figures it had fallen to 18.3 percent.

This was believed to be because of the law changes in 2005 that tightened up the regulations for residency for married foreigners to clamp down on sham marriages that will purely carried out for the purposes of gaining work Visa and residency permit.

The organisation Fibel which is a woman’s initiative for multicultural marriages and partnerships work through the statistics for 2009 to work out where the countries are that most foreigners getting married up from.

They found that 46.6 percent were EU citizens – in contrast to 22.3 percent in 2005. In contrast the number of people marrying Africans has fallen significantly.

In general statistics show that about 70 percent of the foreigners marrying here are women. Statistically the most common marriages with foreigners with people from Germany – 770 women and 456 men from Germany marrying Austrians.

The second most common original land for brides is Serbia and Montenegro with 262 and Slovakia with 236. With regards to the men the most common after Germany is Turkey – 373 men and Serbia and Montenegro with 332.

Outside of Europe most women come from Thailand – hundred and 36 – and most of the men come from Japan – 31.