Fewer people are getting divorced in England and Wales than at any time since the law was liberalised in 1971, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday.
In total, 101,055 opposite sex couples got divorced in 2015, the lowest number since the number of divorces shot up from 74,437 in 1971 to 119,025 in 1972.
The decline is partly because fewer people are getting married but the rate of married couples getting divorced is also the lowest since the Divorce Reform Act came into force. There were 8.5 divorces per thousand married men and women in 2015, down from a peak of 14.3 in 1993.
The average length of a marriage is now the second highest on record, after 1972. The median time a couple stays married is now 11.9 years, up from a low of 8.9 years in 1985.
This is part of the explanation for the lower divorce rate, said Christiaan Monden, a sociologist at the University of Oxford. The number of married couples now includes more older couples and once a couple has stayed together for 25 years they are much less likely to get divorced.
He added there was good news as “the marriages in the early 2000s seem to have a bigger chance of surviving the first 5 or 10 years [than] in the 1990s” but even with the recent declines there is still a much higher risk of couples getting divorced than in the 1970s.
Fewer divorces also reflects the changing social mores of Britain in the 21st century, couples taking longer to get married or feeling comfortable having children outside of wedlock may mean the eventual marriages are more stable.
The ONS said, “age at marriage is also considered to be closely linked to the risk of divorce with those marrying in their teens and early twenties being at greater risk of divorce; our marriage statistics show that the average age at marriage has increased steadily since 1970 for both men and women.”
Prof Monden said that couples were more likely to wait until they were financially stable before getting married these days, meaning that the eventual marriages may be more secure.
Before the Divorce Reform Act, divorce was largely only available to rich men. Afterwards, it was no longer necessary to prove the breakdown of a relationship was one member of the couple’s fault because of “adultery, drunkenness, insanity or desertion”.
The act was one of a number of liberalising reforms passed by parliament under Harold Wilson’s government in the late 1960s, including the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the relaxation of theatre censorship.
Joanne Edwards, head of family law at Forsters, said that the decline in divorce has been attributed to other factors, as well as an increase in cohabitation. “Perhaps greater equality and contentment within marriage, as increasingly wives and husband have their own career,” she said
Ms Edwards said the latest statistics showed the need for further reform including “no fault divorce” and protection for cohabiting couples.
