London: Divorcees suffer the UK's highest debt burden, a study showed yesterday.
Divorced people rely more heavily on credit cards and personal loans, according to Alliance & Leicester's (A&L) latest borrowing monitor.
And they pay a higher proportion of their incomes servicing their debt than any other group, due to having typically lower earnings.
Divorcees have an average of £4,984 (Dh34,000) worth of unsecured debt - equivalent to 28 per cent of their annual income.
That is higher than the debt levels raked up by married, single or separated people relative to income.
Married people owe an average £2,600, or £5,245 per couple, the study revealed.
They also tend to earn more, so owe less than a sixth (15.9 per cent) of their annual income.
Single people owe £5,299, but half of that is student debt and is, therefore, very cheap to finance.
Those who are separated, meanwhile, are in debt to the tune of an average £6,262; although this is 25 per cent more than divorcees, they also earn more, so pay just 4 per cent of their income in interest payments, compared to 4.2 per cent among divorcees.
Single and separated people also tend to be younger than divorcees, so have more time to repay their borrowings.
In addition, fewer divorcees own their own homes, suggesting that a large proportion of them fail to get back on to the housing ladder following the break-up.
