Divorce at seven-year high

The divorce rate has hit a seven-year high, according to the Office for National Statistics, while for an increasing number of people who divorced last year this was not their first marriage split.

The total number of divorces last year was 147,735 (13.3 people per 1,000 of the married population), which was 2.7 per cent up on 2001, and a fifth of them had been divorced before, compared with 11 per cent in 1981.

The number of divorces where the marriage was the first for both parties continues to fall: and adultery, it seems, is going out of fashion. In 1991, nearly a third of divorces were granted on the grounds of adultery, while last year only 22 per cent were due to infidelity. Analysts said this was due to a greater use of mediation.

Altogether, 149,335 children aged under 16 were in families where the parents divorced in 2002, and of those 23 per cent were aged under five.