The bar charts provide a comparative analysis of the age distribution of males and females entering into marriage within a specific nation across two distinct years, 1996 and 2008.
Overall, there was a discernible shift towards marrying at a later age for both genders over the twelve-year period. Consistently, women tended to wed at a younger age compared to men, who predominantly occupied the higher percentage shares in older age brackets in both years.
In 1996, the highest proportion of females married between the ages of 25 and 29, accounting for approximately 12%. Men, conversely, displayed a broader peak, with similar percentages of roughly 9% in both the 25-29 and 30-34 age groups. Notably, women significantly outnumbered men in the younger brackets; for instance, in the 20-24 age range, 6% of women married compared to only about 2% of men. This trend reversed from age 30 onwards, where male percentages exceeded those of females.
By 2008, while the peak marriage age for women remained stable at 25-29 (hovering near 12%), the peak for men shifted dramatically to the older 35-39 cohort, reaching approximately 11.5%. The tendency to delay marriage was evident as rates for younger groups fell; female marriages in the 20-24 bracket dropped to 3%. Meanwhile, male figures in the 30-39 range surged, with the 35-39 group rising from 7% to nearly 11.5%, thereby widening the gap between genders in these older categories.