Divorce No Option for UK’s Unhappily Married as Inflation Bites

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(Bloomberg) — New official statistics from Britain offer nuance to Leo Tolstoy’s famous observation. Happy families may be the same, but the country’s unhappy families also have one thing in common: the cost-of-living crisis.

The share of adults who say they are quite or not very happy with their relationship is the highest since 2014, but the divorce rate is at its lowest level in more than 50 years. It is according to household survey data and separate divorce statistics released by the National Statistics Office.

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The trend has coincided with the second-biggest inflation in decades, reducing household incomes and increasing costs for everything from energy bills to groceries and rent. Soaring mortgage rates imposed by the Bank of England to curtail price increases pushed up the cost of owning and renting a home. Effectively, that leads to the dissolution price of the long-term partnership.

“Some people put off their divorce or separation until the economy is better,” says Joanna Newton, a partner at Stowe Family Law. “What we were able to afford before – bills, child care and other living expenses – is becoming increasingly difficult and unaffordable.”

The figures also support a wider decline in happiness levels across the UK. The number of Britons reporting low levels of anxiety and life satisfaction was higher than pre-Covid levels in the first quarter of 2024, according to household survey data published by the ONS on Thursday.

The report shows the share of people who are unhappy with their relationship will reach 6% in 2022, the most since 2014.

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Divorces in England and Wales are at their lowest level since 1971, according to separate figures published earlier this year. The number of divorces decreased by 30% in the year to 80,057 in 2022.

This is despite changes to divorce laws in 2020 that aim to improve the separation process by preventing one spouse from contesting the divorce requested by the spouse. The reform also introduced the so-called “no-fault” divorce, which does not require one of the spouses to provide evidence of the spouse’s unreasonable behavior.

Economic trends offset these impacts. And while real household incomes have rebounded after inflation returned to the 2% target over the past two months, mortgage rates remain more than double the average in the years before the pandemic, and the rental market is still hot.

“I don’t think mortgage rates and interest rates have dropped enough for people to feel comfortable and confident to push the button,” Newton said. “It’s a bit of a ‘watch this space’.”

The housing market is one of the main reasons why unhappy couples are unable to separate. Increase in mortgage costs – together with the increase in rental prices because of supply shortages, made moving out of your own reach out of reach for many. And while the housing market avoided last year’s crash, some couples put off putting their homes on the market for fear of selling at a loss.

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“Selling your home at the best of times means more money will be split between the parties and buy new accommodation,” says Newton.

More than 30% of 500 people surveyed by Stowe Family Law stayed with their partners because they could not leave alone, according to a report last year.

The cost of living crisis is also one of the reasons why many relationships have turned sour in recent years. About half of the respondents to the Stowe Family Law report said they did not experience financial strain before January 2022.

Most say the cost-of-living crisis has affected their relationships. Respondents cited concerns about rising utility and food bills, and worries about not being able to maintain their current lifestyle, the report also said.

In other words, financial strain is a common element in many unhappy relationships – a twist on Tolstoy’s conclusion in Anna Karenina that, “all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

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