According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed that the number of divorces that took place in 2019 increased by 18 per cent on the previous year.
There were 107,599 divorces of opposite-sex couples in 2019, a figure which increased 18.4 per cent on the 90,871 divorces to take place in 2018.
The divorce rate among opposite-sex couples in 2019 increased to 8.9 divorces per 1,000 married men and women aged 16 years and over from 7.5 in 2018.
It is believed that the increase is largely due to a backlog of casework in 2018, which would have resulted in divorce centres processing the delayed cases in 2019.
There were 822 divorces among same-sex couples in 2019, nearly twice the number in 2018 (428 divorces). Nearly three-quarters of these (72 per cent) were between female couples.
Unreasonable behaviour was the most common reason for opposite-sex couples divorcing in 2019 with 49 per cent of wives and 35 per cent of husbands petitioning on these grounds.
It was also the most common reason for same-sex couples divorcing, accounting for 63 per cent of divorces among women and 70 per cent among men.
Kanak Ghosh, on behalf of the Office for National Statistics, said: “Same-sex couples have been able to marry in England and Wales from March 2014. Since then, we have seen the number of divorces of same-sex couples increase each year from very small numbers in 2015 when the first divorces took place, to more than 800 in 2019, reflecting the increasing size of the same-sex married population in England and Wales.
“While we see that 56 per cent of same-sex marriages were among females, nearly three-quarters of same-sex divorces in 2019 were to female couples. Unreasonable behaviour, which includes adultery, was the most common ground for divorce among same-sex couples this year as almost two-thirds of couples divorced for this reason.”
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