The 2021 Population and Housing Census has revealed that four out of five marriages representing 80.8 per cent have not been registered.

The census which captured the registration status of marriages between the ages of 15 years and older found out that only 19.2 per cent of marriages in Ghana have been registered.

The report showed that Greater Accra recorded the least number of unregistered marriages followed by the Ashanti Region and Eastern Region with 59.9 per cent, 75.5 per cent and 76.9 per cent respectively.

The highest number of unregistered marriages was recorded in the Northern part of the country where the Northern, Savannah and North East regions recorded 97.1 per cent, 96.1 per cent and 95.7 percent respectively.

In addition, the data showed that more married persons in the urban areas (27.3%) have registered their marriage compared to married persons in the rural areas (9.3%).

In the report, out of the total of 7,875,880 persons who are never married, more than half - which is 4,459,622 representing 56.6 per cent are men who reside in the urban areas.

More women are divorced, separated and widowed

The Census indicated that substantially more women than men are separated, divorced or widowed in both the rural and urban areas.

In the urban areas, 3.5 percent of women were divorced as compared to 1.7 percent of men while in the rural areas, 3.6 per cent of women were divorced as compared to 2.4 per cent of men.

Meanwhile, 553,065 persons in Ghana have had their marriages dissolved while 405,090 have separated.

According to fresh data by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 362,233 out of the 553,065 divorced persons are females with the remaining 190,832 being males translating into a share of 65.5% and 34.5%, respectively.

Of the over 400,000 spouses who have separated, the majority were females with a corresponding figure of 252,079 persons; the remaining 153,011 were males.