IBGE Census Shows Consensual Unions Overtake Formal Marriage as Brazil’s Most Common Partnership

Overview

• Consensual unions accounted for 38.9% of partnerships in 2022, surpassing civil-and-religious marriages at 37.9%, with civil-only at 20.5% and religious-only at 2.6%.
• Household makeup shifted as couples without children reached 24.1% of families (up from 13% in 2000), couples with children fell to 42%, and single-person homes tripled to 13.6 million (19.1%).
• Same-sex conjugal unions rose to 480,000 in 2022 (0.7% of households), with 77.6% classified as consensual and a majority formed by women (58%).
• Overall, 51.3% of people aged 10+ lived in a union; those never in union fell to 30.1% and the separated/divorced/widowed share climbed to 18.6%, led by Rio de Janeiro at 21.4%.
• Female-headed households reached 48.8%, and IBGE flagged more than 34,000 children aged 10–14 reported in unions, noting self-declaration caveats and legal prohibitions below 16.