The increasing use of so-called “fat jabs” such as Ozempic and Mounjaro is being predicted to cause all sorts of social changes. They may enable the NHS to reduce cases of obesity and diabetes. They also being cited by Greggs as causing a downturn in sales of sausages rolls and steak bakes. Now The Sun has reported that research in Sweden claims that weight loss injections will cause a surge in divorces.
The research by the University of Gothenburg reports that people who lose weight fast are twice as likely to divorce. They may divorce because they have reappraised their lives and it may empower them to leave unhealthy relationships.
So, are divorce lawyers going to see an increase in divorces? Frankly, I doubt it.
I have lost count of the number of times that things are predicted to cause a rise in the divorce rate, only for the divorce rate to just carry on doing what it has been doing since the 1990’s – falling.
(Note: for the sake of simplicity, when I say divorce, this includes dissolution of civil partnership. Similarly, when I refer to marriage, this includes civil partnerships, which are effectively the same thing).
According to the Office for National Statistics, in 1993, there were a total of 165,019 divorces. The number of divorce and dissolution applications in 2023 (the most recent figures available as at 18 April 2026) was 103,816. This is, I suspect, because fewer people are marrying and more people are just cohabiting.
We also need to bear in mind that the population of England and Wales has risen during this time, and also that more people can now get divorced (or have their civil partnerships dissolved) because of the introduction of civil partnerships and marriages. Yet the number of people getting divorced keeps falling.
People predicted that the 2008 recession would cause an increase in divorces. In fact, I received fewer new instructions when it hit, as people were reluctant to incur the cost of a divorce during difficult economic times. The divorce rate in 2007 (before the recession) was 128,131. In 2008, the figure was 121,179, so it actually led to fewer divorces.
In 2009 the number of divorces fell to 113,949, which was the lowest figure since 1974. In 2010, it shot back up to 119,589. Why? I suspect that it was the result of people delaying their divorces due to reluctance to incur the expense. I also suspect that many of the people who delayed their divorce had already separated, and that the while the divorce rate may have risen, the overall rate for marital breakdowns remained unchanged. The rate is still less than it was in 2007 before the recession.
It should be borne in mind that these figures are for concluded divorces (i.e. where a decree absolute/final order was made). They are not the figure for divorces commenced. A divorce can often take 18 months, perhaps longer, where there are financial issues that need resolving. Many of the 2008 divorces would have been commend in 2007 or earlier, i.e. before the recession. Many of the divorces begun in 2008 would have ended in 2009, which was a very low year. Many of the 2010 divorces (a big year for divorce) would have commenced in 2009 as we were coming out of recession and people were feeling more economically secure.
The COVID pandemic during 2020 to 2021 was also supposed to be something that was going to cause the divorce rate to rise. Couples being forced to live together during lockdowns would, it was claimed, inevitably lead to bust ups. Not as far as I could tell. In 2019, there were 108,421 divorces.
In 2020, the year of COVID, there were 103,592 divorces. This rose to 113,505 in 2021, but this figure may have been inflated by delays in the court system, as a larger number of divorces that began in 2020 or earlier took longer to conclude.
No-fault divorce was the next thing that was predicted (mostly by its opponents) to cause an increase in the divorce rate. There was indeed an increase in divorces after it was introduced in April 2022, but this was not a surge, it was a spike. This was expected. Research into no-fault divorce by Professor Liz Trinder showed that in countries where no-fault divorce was introduced, there was usually a spike caused by people waiting for the new law to be introduced before they started a divorce, and that the divorce rate then fell back to normal. Sure enough, in the months before the new law came into force in April 2022, I noticed a falloff in divorce instructions, a spike after April and then a drop back to normal levels.
Opponents of no-fault divorce claimed that it would make too early. They failed to understand that it has already easy to get a fault-based divorce as divorce petitions were rarely defended (and even more rarely successfully defended).
The cost of living crisis was then used as evidence that the divorce rate would rise. In 2024, it was reported that the divorce rate during 2022 had fallen by 29.5% from 113,505 concluded divorces during 2021 to 80,057 during 2022. This was blamed by commentators on the cost of living crisis. However, it is worth noting that during 2022 a freedom of information request showed that there were a record number of applications started (as opposed to decrees absolute/final orders). At the time, this was also blamed on the cost of living crisis. But, as I blogged here at the time, how can it be the cause of divorce applications rising and concluded applications falling at the same time?
The actual cause was the introduction of the 20 week waiting period in no-fault divorces between the date of issue and the date upon which the applicant can apply for the conditional order which was introduced from April 2022 onwards.
The prime reason for the divorce rate falling is that fewer people are getting married in the first place. Despite the growing numbers of people who cohabit and do not marry, one government after another has failed to reform the inadequate law that applies to unmarried couples. The labour Party included a review of cohabitation law in their 2024 General Election manifesto, but progress has been slow. The review has been merged with another review of matrimonial finances. This is regrettable in my view, as it will delay cohabitation law reform while it considers whether to change matrimonial finance law (which in my view, works well, although I won’t pretend it is perfect).
Inevitably, I am sceptical that weight loss jabs are going to cause the divorce rate to rise, just as I was about it being caused by economic downturns, recessions and changes in the law. I have heard all this before.
2 May 2026
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