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Marriages Increase Sharply Last Year in Japan
An estimated 788,000 couples married in 2000, up 26,000 from 1999, while an all-time high of 262,000 couples divorced, the Health and Welfare Ministry said Monday.
The increase in the number of marriages can be attributed to the likelihood that couples wanted to tie the knot in what was widely acknowledged to be the first year of the new millennium, though 2001 is actually the first millennial year.
According to the ministry's annual demographic transition statistics for 2000,a whopping 32,000 couples registered their marriages on New Year's Day alone. That is about two-thirds as many as the 46,000 couples who registered during the entire month of January 1999.
The ministry's annual estimates were calculated from preliminary statistics covering January to October last year.
The estimated 262,000 divorces was up 11,000 from the previous year and would mark a record high for the ninth straight year.
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