Online dating blamed for rising rate of ‘silver splitters’

ONLINE dating may be behind a rising rate of divorce among over-65s, the Office for National Statistics has said.

Divorce rates among both men and women aged over 65 – nicknamed silver splitters – have increased over the past decade, and so has use of the internet.

From 2005 to 2015, the most recent full year available, the number of men of pension age getting divorced has increased from 8,059 to 8,697, and among women of the same age group the increase was from 4,654 to 5,554.

Figures published by the ONS earlier this year show that older people are catching up with the young in internet use. In 2017, 78 per cent of those aged 65 to 74 said they had recently used the internet, compared to 52 per cent in 2011.

In a report released yesterday the ONS said that older people are “more connected, economically and socially, than they were before”.

“People aged 65 and over are more likely than ever to be working, and therefore be able to support themselves outside marriage. They’re also catching up with younger people in their use of the internet – perhaps trying out online dating,” it said.

Claire Reid of Hall Brown, a family law firm, said that the internet was increasingly a factor in divorce among older people. She said: “It’s not an altogether regular occurrence but it has certainly become a more regular feature of divorce cases over the last two or three years, in particular.

“In one case, a middle-aged husband made repeated trips of several thousand miles, apparently on business, before his wife eventually discovered he was having an affair with a woman whom he’d met via the internet.”