Sydney- You can count on being financially worse off after divorce, a landmark Australian study has found. Less than half of those aged 55 to 74 who had gone through divorce owned their own homes compared with three-quarters of their married peers who had stayed together, researchers at Melbourne's La Trobe University reported.
One quarter of once-divorced men in that age bracket told researchers they had experienced financial hardship in the previous year compared with just 10 per cent of never-divorced men. One-third of once-divorced women told the same story compared with less than one in 10 never-divorced women.
David de Vaus, who led the research team, said the first wave of those who split up when divorce became easier in 1975 were now entering retirement.
"More and more people will carry into their later life the financial effects of divorce in terms of home ownership, assets and income," he told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Around a third of marriages end in divorce and more than a third of adult Australians are now without a partner.
De Vaus said that those who remarry did better than those who stayed single after their divorce. "If you divorce and stay single, you don't recover financially," he said.
The report was released at a time when pressure is building within the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard to make it harder to break the bonds of marriage. There are plans for 65 "relationship counselling centres" across the country and a state- funded campaign to tout the benefits of couples staying together.
