Same-sex marriages in Australia one year after legalization in 2017

In 2000, the Netherlands became to first country to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples, thereby initiating a slow but irreversible movement. Since then, 31 countries on all continents have passed such legislation. Australia was the 27th to do so, in 2017.

In 2018, Australia registered a total of 118,536 marriages, 6,769 of which (or 5.7%) were of same sex couples. Of these, the majority were women (58%), followed by men (42%). As has been found for other countries, same-sex couple partners are generally older than their different-sex counterparts. The median age of gay partners when they married was 45 and of lesbian partners 39, in contrast to 31 for different-sex partners. The long wait for marriage equality may account in some part for this finding: same-sex couples could not get married, meaning that the individuals concerned aged and the number of couples waiting to solemnize their union rose. Moreover, the number of same-sex couples showing a partner age difference of more than 5 years is much higher among same-sex couples. 
In one third of lesbian marriages, one partner had already been married—a higher figure than for male partners (18%) and different-sex partners (27%). And in 17% of lesbian couples at least one partner already had children from a previous marriage—more than in different-sex couples (15%) and twice as high as in gay couples (9%). Meanwhile, lesbian spouses raising children from an earlier marriage were much younger than gay spouses in the same situation. 
In nearly 60% of gay married couples in Australia, at least one spouse was born outside the country, while in approximately the same proportion of lesbian marriages both spouses were Australian by birth. Same-sex couples are better accepted in Australia than in most Asian countries. 
With the exception of same-sex couples married in Queensland (for whom no data on usual place of residence is available), 77% of same-sex spouses lived in “greater capital city areas,” the rest in regions outside them. This is the equivalent of 36 same-sex marriages per 1,000 marriages in capital city areas, and 27 per 1,000 in regional areas.