Divorce rate falls after 50 years of steady increase
By David Fletcher, Health Correspondent
DIVORCE may have peaked after half a century of steady increase, according to new figures which show a four per cent fall in a year.
According to the Office for National Statistics, there were just over 158,000 divorces in 1994, a drop of 4.2 per cent over the previous year when the total reached a record 165,000.
By comparison, there were fewer than 60,000 divorces in 1970 and only 6,000 in 1938.
However there has also been a fall in the number of marriages as the trend continues for couples to live together rather than marry. Statistics show that just over 291,000 marriages took place in England and Wales in 1994, a decrease of 2.7 per cent on 1993.
The largest fall was among marriages in which both partners were marrying for the first time - 174,000 in 1994 compared with 182,000 in 1993.
Denise Knowles, spokeswoman for Relate, said the fall in the divorce rate might reflect a greater determination by many couples to make their marriages work and a greater willingness to accept counselling or mediation when they hit difficulties. "Falling divorce is good news, both for couples who go through the trauma of divorce and for their children," she said.
"There is also a greater emphasis on family and the feeling that children benefit from a stable family life." But she said that falling divorce also reflected the fact that fewer people were getting married and more people were living together.
Although divorce has increased steadily over the past 50 years, the sharpest rise was in the early 70s after "quickie" divorces came into effect in 1971.
Numbers more than doubled - from 50,000 a year to over 100,000 within two years following the new legislation. There was another jump - albeit much smaller - after 1985 when the minimum period of marriage before divorce was reduced from three years to one.
The latest divorce law reform - removing the concept of fault - may cause the rate to rise again but Relate believes it will reinforce the downward trend.
Marriage reached a peak of its popularity in 1970 when more than 415,000 couples went to the altar.
By 1980, the number dropped to 370,000, fell further to 331,000 in 1990 and slumped to 299,197 in 1993 - the lowest number since the 1920s.
Civil ceremonies have also continued to increase in popularity. In 1994, a total of 52 per cent of marriages were solemnised with a civil ceremony - rather than a religious one - compared with 51 per cent in 1993 and 50 per cent in 1992.
Wives sued for divorce more often than husbands. Seventy-one per cent of all divorces were granted to wives in 1994, slightly lower than the proportion of 72 per cent in 1992 and 1993.
Marriages ended by divorce lasted for an average of 9.8 years, a duration which has remained virtually unchanged since 1988.
Most divorces were among those aged from 30 to 34 whereas most divorcing wives were in the 25-29 age group over the previous 30 years.
