Evidence is emerging that the recession is indeed causing couples to split up and this is nowhere more evident than in the figures produced today by one of the UK's leading proponents of cheap divorce - Divorce-Online.co.uk.
Managing Director Mark Keenan said, "We have seen a marked increase in people using the service since the end of 2008 and we have had to take on additional staff and office space to cope with the increase in demand for our services."
3000 divorce packages were sold through the website between January and the end of April which is a 30% increase on 2008.
The company has also seen a shift in the grounds of divorce, with more couples divorcing because of financial problems and using unreasonable behaviour as the fact for their divorce.
Mark says "Whether or not there are actually more people getting divorced, or people are just being cost conscious and using our service as opposed to traditional solicitors will have to seen.
"We will have to wait for the Government to produce the statistics, but my gut feeling is that this recession will mirror the last one in the 1990's when there was a spike in divorces during it's height."
About Divorce-Online
Divorce-Online.Co.UK is the UK's best known uncontested divorce service with services starting at just GBP68.00 for a DIY divorce and GBP182.00 for a managed service.
Divorce Statistics from the Office for National Statistics for 2007
Between 2006 and 2007, the provisional number of divorces granted in the UK fell by 2.6 per cent to 144,220, from 148,141. This is the third consecutive fall in the number of UK divorces and the lowest number since 1977 (138,445). The figure is 20 per cent lower than the highest number of divorces, which peaked in 1993 (180,018).
The provisional number of divorces in England and Wales fell by 3.0 per cent to 128,534 in 2007. The number of divorces in Scotland decreased by 1.9 per cent from 13,014 in 2006 to 12,773 in 2007. Conversely, the provisional number of divorces in Northern Ireland increased to 2,913 in 2007, a 14 per cent increase from 2006 (2,565) Case studies may be available in relation to this release.
Hi res photographs are available
