THE TELEGRAPH: Rise of 'silver singles' after hike in divorce rates in 70s put them off marriage

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Bachelors and spinsters are concepts consigned to history. But figures suggest that new terms might be needed as the number of single people in their 50s has doubled in 15 years.

 

Debora Price, a professor of social gerontology at Manchester University, agreed that this spate of divorces “almost certainly had an effect”.

She said: "For the first time, lots of children were growing up in households where their parents had divorced.

“There is some suggestion that those children then did not see marriage as something they wanted to achieve.”

She said some children would have been so traumatised by living through difficult divorces that it would have put them off marriage for life.

However, others would have grown up with the idea that marriage was pointless because their parents had split so easily, she added.

“They may well have witnessed their parents being fine, and then having long-term partners which they did not marry,” she said.