Couples are getting married five years later than a decade ago, according to official statistics that underline the falling popularity of marriage. In addition, only a third now marry in church.

The average age of a woman getting married is 33.8 years, up from 29.1 a decade ago, while the average age of a man is now 36.5 years, up from 31.2 years. In Ireland, the average of marriage is 31 for women and 33 for men.

The high cost of weddings, a greater proportion of people pursuing higher education and increased foreign travel among the reasons for the change. The figures also suggest that more people – particularly the growing number of career women – are deciding to concentrate on work before settling down.

The figures appeared in the annual marriage data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) yesterday, which also showed that the marriage rate had fallen to a new all-time low.

Fewer couples are getting married than at any time since 1862, when records began.

The data also showed that, for the first time ever, fewer than 2 in 100 women got married in a single year in 2008. The rate fell from 2 per cent to 1.96 per cent, less than half the rate 25 years ago.

The ONS also said that under one of its measures the number of unmarried women now outnumbered married women for the first time. Of the adult female population, 49 per cent are married, though if you include married but separated women – estranged but not divorced – this figure climbs to 52 per cent.

Meanwhile, fewer than one third of couples getting married are doing so in a church or religious ceremony, the lowest proportion ever recorded, according to the ONS data.

During 2008 there 156,290 civil ceremonies, dwarfing the 76,700 religious ceremonies during the year. This is the first time that less than a third of marriages have been civil ceremonies.

As little as twenty years ago the number of religious ceremonies outnumbered the number of civil weddings.

The profound shift has partly been driven by the change in the law in 1995, which allowed weddings to take place at hotels, historic buildings and stately homes.

It has also been driven by the falling number of churchgoers. The most dramatic fall has been seen in Roman Catholic weddings, with just 8,640 in 2008, less than a third of the number that took place in 1981 when 26,097 Catholic weddings happened.

The overall figures sparked, once again, a debate over whether married couples should enjoy tax breaks.

Last month Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary said the policy, which has been suggested by the Conservatives was “unfair” and amounted to “social engineering”.

However, the Centre for Social Justice, the think tank founded by the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, has argued that tax credit system makes it very difficult for young people, on a low income, to get married.

It has calculated that approximately 1.8 million low-earning couples are materially worse off than their single parent counterparts, losing on average £1,336 a year because they live together.

Samantha Callan, the think tank’s chairman, said: “Marriage is important because one in three couples who live together when a child is born split up before that child is five, compared to only one in 11 married couples.

“The couple penalty in the working tax credit is preventing lower income people from living together and getting married and Government indifference to this issue is a huge part of the problem.”

The figures also showed that fewer second and third marriages are taking place, suggesting that weddings are becoming increasingly a preserve for couples celebrating for the first time.

According to the ONS figures, of the 232,990 marriages that took place in England and Wales during 2008, 63.14 per cent of them were ceremonies where both were marrying for the first time.

This is an increase on three years previously, when 59.9 per cent of marriages were when both were celebrating for the first time, and reverses a long-running trend for people to remarry after divorcing.

The higher age of both marrying and divorcing couples, and the social acceptability of cohabiting has meant that second marriages were falling from favour.

For the first time in four years, the number of marriages for first time couples has increased – not just in percentage terms, but in real terms. There were 147,130 ceremonies where both partners were being married for the first time, up from 146,220 the year before.