The most recent batch of statistics released from last year's census has provided some surprising insight into personal relationships in the UK – and how they end. The figures have shone a spotlight on divorce over the past half a decade and generated even more interest in the way our relationships peter out and what the general trends and patterns are. The census statistics show that between 2006 and 2011 there was a 22.3% rise in the numbers of separated and divorced people in the UK - in real terms this is an increase from 166,797 to 203,964. Breaking this down by gender, more women than men were recorded as divorced or separated - 115,046 women compared to 88,918 men.
These figures follow on from a report released in September of this year that showed that since 1993 divorce rates had actually fallen. High court judge Sir Paul Coleridge formed a think tank designed to increase our understanding of families and marriages and reduce family breakdown by trying to ‘end the scourge of divorce.’ The report produced by the think tank used marriage and divorce data going back to 1993 and found that there were 165,000 divorces in 1993, but just under 120,000 in 2010. This gives some context to the census figures, demonstrating that whilst separation and divorce might have risen over the past five years, actual divorce figures are still lower than in 1993. Sir Paul Coleridge’s report put the lower 2010 rates down to the fact that the modern man is proving to be much more committed, and behaving in a way that makes his wife less likely to want to divorce him.
The census data also provided an interesting picture of where in the UK divorce is the most common. Geographically, Blackpool is the divorce capital of the country and has a divorce rate of 13%, which is higher than the 9% average for England and Wales. Interestingly, seaside resorts often tend to top the polls when it comes to divorce rates. There's no official explanation for this but it may not be a coincidence that the Office For National Statistics recently named Blackpool the least happy place in the UK. Local residents questioned in a recent BBC report blamed the high rates of divorce in their area on tough economic conditions putting enormous pressure on local marriages.
Whilst the census data did appear to show divorce is on the rise in the UK, there was some good news in the figures. The statistics also highlighted that there was a huge rise of more than 500% in the number of people who were remarried after getting divorced or having a marriage annulled - which means that for some couples the divorce story still does have a happy ending.