Trends and patterns in Euro-marriages in the Netherlands

Although the European Union is usually viewed as a project aimed at creating a single commodity market, one of its primary purposes was more generally to remove social and cultural boundaries between the European nation-states. Intermarriage is a classical indicator of the formation of social ties and communities. One could claim that the creation of a real social, political, cultural, and supranational European space is only complete if people are also willing to accept each other as their spouses. As part of Europe's social integration, Euro-marriage can be regarded as the litmus test of European integration, and the Netherlands with his status as a founding member should have enjoyed the benefits of one single European marriage market longer than more recent members. Despite this obvious role of intermarriage as a key indicator of European integration, little is known about marriages between Europeans (‘Euro-marriages’) in the Netherlands. This paper tries to fill this gap by describing the patterns of Euro-marriages in the Netherlands, on the basis of register data on bi-national newlyweds and household structure in the Netherlands since 1995. One of the key findings is that Euro-marriages have not become more popular since 1995 and that this is only to some extent compensated by increased cohabitation.