The decline in marriage has left a large number of Brits living alone with no spouse or children to keep them company.
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Those who are middle-aged are the ones who are experiencing the biggest bout of loneliness with almost 2.5million 45-64 year olds having no spouse or children living with them.
Men are being hit much harder than women, with the number of men living on their own increasing far more than that of women.
The Office of National Statistics revealed that the figures have grown by 50 per cent since the 1990’s.
They believe that the rise in singletons living alone is due to those middle-aged people getting a divorce and then finding it hard to find love again.
This massive rise in singletons has affected the housing market as many more people are looking for property, pushing the demand higher.
The research has led some people to believe that the government are discriminative against marriage, pushing people to live separately for monetary purposes.
Women are given much greater benefits if they claim to be living alone as a single parent. Over a million people are thought to be living separately together to get greater benefit pay outs.
The research found that there are now 26.4million homes in Britain, a rise of 11 per cent on 1996. Incredibly, 29 per cent of households only have one person living in them.
The largest age group to be living alone is the 45-64 year olds and the ONS report believes this is due to all the children born in the 1960’s baby boom have now hit middle-aged.
The report believes this singletons boom is due to the decline in marriage. The report said, “The increase in those living alone also coincides with a decrease in the percentage of those in this age group who are married – from 79 per cent in 1996 to 69 per cent in 2012 – and a rise in the percentage of those who have never married or are divorced, from 16 per cent in 1996 to 28 per cent in 2012.”
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