Divorce rate now as low as the 1970s

More couples are cohabiting or getting married later in life

THE likelihood of marriage ending in divorce has dropped to its lowest in 40 years, according to figures released yesterday.

Divorce rates have dropped by more than a third in 20 years and in 2014 less than one in every 100 married couples split.

The divorce rate of 9.3 for every 1,000 married people in 2014 is below that recorded in 1972, the year after liberalising legal reforms made divorce much easier and led to spiralling numbers of marriage break-ups.

The Office for National Statistics said collapsing divorce numbers were linked to the rising popularity of couples living together unmarried and the increasing age at which people choose to marry.

Nicola Haines, of the ONS, said: ‘Previous research indicates a higher risk of divorce among those marrying at younger ages, whilst cohabitation may be reducing the number of weaker relationships progressing to marriage.’

The Marriage Foundation think-tank said those who committed to marriage were much more likely to stick together. Its founder Sir Paul Coleridge, a former High Court judge, said: ‘It really is heartening news that the number of intact families is not declining despite the generally held myth that divorce is simply set to get worse and worse.’

The 2014 figures, which cover England and Wales, show there were 111,169 couples divorced, a 3.1 per cent decrease on the previous year and down more than a quarter on 2003. In the peak year for ending marriages, 1994, there were 165,018 divorces.

The average length of a marriage that ended in divorce in 2014 was 11.7 years, the ONS said – the same as in 2013. That figure has increased from 8.9 years in 1985. The total number of divorces was largely because of marriage’s declining popularity. There were about 241,000 weddings in 2013 compared with 426,000 in 1972.

The ONS said divorce rates in 2014 were lower than the previous year for all age groups except women aged 55 and over. Middle-aged wives are thought to be more prone to walking out on a marriage than previous genera- tions because longer and fitter lives make them more likely to stray. They also have greater financial independence.

There are thought to be 3.3million cohabiting couples, 1.27million of them with children.

Cohabiting relationships are estimated to be at least three times more likely to break up than marriages.

However, ONS estimates show that numbers of cohabitee parents with children have hardly risen in the past five years, and the explosion in numbers of families headed by live-in couples of the 1990s and 2000s may be over.

Family lawyer Katie Lowe, of JMW Solicitors, said: ‘ Some might argue that cohabitation is almost a form of natural selection for marriage, preventing couples in fragile or troubled relationships from progressing to marriage and, possibly, to divorce.’

It has also been suggested that although divorce is not expensive in itself, the sorting out of finances can be costly and many people who would prefer to split cannot afford to.

The Relate counselling organisation said divorce rates could be lower still as its surveys showed one in ten divorcees think they would have saved their marriage with better support.

‘Prevents fragile relationships’