Scoop’s Views

The Brits must be doing something right, as there are reports on the international wires today that the number of divorces in the United Kingdom has declined for the third consecutive year. In fact, the number is now at a 30-year low, meaning divorces are at their lowest point in the UK since 1977, and proportionally, the lowest in 22 years, or since 1985.

According to Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), a total of 132,562 couples formally split last year, a drop of 6.5% on 2005 and the third annual drop in succession.

The figure, which excludes Scotland and Northern Ireland, is the lowest since 1977 when there were 129,053 divorces.

Overall provisional divorce rates for England and Wales, as calculated by proportion rather than total, also fell to its lowest level for 22 years, to 12.2 for every thousand married men and women.

During 2006, the second consecutive year showing a decline divorce filings, actually demonstrated a seven percent decline on 2005 of 13.1 percent.

According to statistics provided by the ONS, figures show that couples in the UK stayed married, on average, 11.6 years, which is a number unchanged since 2005.

The statistics also showed that people in their late 20s had the highest divorce rates in the UK. There were 26 divorces per 1,000 men aged 25-to-29, and 27.3 percent among women in the same age group.

Overall, the age of people divorcing was higher. The average age for men to divorce was 40.9 years of age, and for women, 43.4.

Second-time divorcees doubled in the past 25 years, the ONS data showed.

In 1981, just over one in 10 people who filed for divorced had already been in a marriage that ended in divorce. Last year, though, that number jumped to one-in-five.

Divorces in the UK, as a whole, last year feel by 4.5 percent to 148,411, down from
155,052 in 2005.

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