According to EU statistics released by Eurostat Britain has one of the highest numbers of single parent families in Europe.
While divorce rates have declined in recent years, the answer to Britain’s declining rate of family stability may lie in the relatively high break up levels amongst cohabiting couples. The rate of breakups among cohabiting couples is four times higher than those who are married.
18.4% of UK families are now looked after by a single parent, which is comparable to numbers in the former communist states of central and Eastern Europe. In the Netherlands and Denmark for example the figures are 10.6% and 12.2% respectively.
With these statistics in mind there are now calls for the legal status of cohabiting couples to be changed in an attempt to preserve family units. Critics of this idea believe that this will only serve to encourage more parents to cohabit rather than marry and have little impact on family stability.
According to The Office for National Statistics (ONS) 42 per cent of all marriages end in divorce withthe highest rates of divorce (half) happening within the first 10 years of marriage.