The number of people in the over-60 age bracket getting divorced in England and Wales has risen steadily since the mid-1990s, according to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics. This is despite an overall decline in divorce numbers over the same period.
Reasons suggested for this increase include:
- increased longevity resulting in more people reaching the age of 60 and beyond.
- reduced stigma associated with divorce, and
- more women in the workforce, resulting in more women being financially independent.
The figures show that there were 31,000 divorces in England and Wales in 1950. The number of divorces rose sharply in the early 1970s after the Divorce Reform Act 1969 came into effect in 1971. This Act made it easier for couples to divorce. Divorces peaked in 1993 when 165,000 divorces were recorded before falling to 118,000 in 2011, the latest year for which divorce statistics are available.
The number of divorces to men aged 60 and over also rose during the 1970s before stabilising during the 1980s and 1990s at between 5,000 and 6,000 divorces a year. The number increased again in the late 1990s and in 2011, nearly 9,500 men aged 60 and over divorced. This is a 73% increase compared with 1991. Similar trends are observed for women aged 60 and over.
In 2011, the average length of marriage for men age 60 and over and getting divorced was 27.4 years, with only 14% of men in this age group having been married for less than a decade. For women age 60 and over and divorcing, meanwhile, the average length of marriage was 31.9 years. This difference is explained by the fact that husbands tend to be older than their wives, and so by age 60 women have been married for longer than men on average.
The average length of marriage for all people divorcing in 2011 was much shorter at 11.5 years. This might be expected as those who are older tend to have been married for longer.
Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.1.0.
