Couples aged sixty-five and older are getting married and divorced at greater rates in England and Wales, a recent release from the Office of National Statistics has revealed. The release reveals that the rates of marriage among couples aged sixty-five and older have increased from 7,468 in 2004 to 10,937 in 2014, an increase of forty-six percent.

ONS statistics reveal men to be taking up the lion’s share of this increase in marriage. In 2014, fifty-six percent of men aged sixty-five and over got married to younger women, compared to twenty-six percent of women. A statistic easily chalked up to the fact that men prefer younger women.

Divorce rates among the over-sixty-fives have also been on the rise. While divorce rates in England Wales have decreased by twenty-eight percent between 2005 and 2015, it has increased among older couples by twenty-three percent for men and thirty-eight percent for women. The ONS believes this increase to be the result of higher life-expectancy, higher rates of older workers, and an increase in the number of older people using the internet, particularly online dating.

Perhaps, as the ONS suggests, the increased rate of marriage and divorce among the over sixty-fives comes as a result of an ageing population. Between 2004 and 2014, the percentage of people aged sixty-five and older increased by twenty-percent.