Divorce "bad for the environment"

05/12/2007

The global trend of soaring divorce rates - especially among older people - means that households with fewer people are taking up more space and gobbling more energy and water.

The rather novel study called "A statistical remedy: Fall back in love. Cohabitation means less urban sprawl and softens the environmental hit" was carried out by Jianguo “Jack” Liu and Eunice Yu at Michigan State University.

Said Liu: “Divorce is on the rise, not only in the West but also in developing countries such as China and places with strict religious policies regarding divorce. The consequent increases in the consumption of water, energy and housing space are being seen everywhere.”

Housing units, even if they now have few people in them, still require resources to construct them and take up space, as well as requiring fuel to both heat and cool. And the fact is that a refrigerator uses roughly the same amount of energy whether it belongs to a family of four or single person.

They also tracked what happens when divorced people returned to married life - and found that the environmental footprint shrunk back to that of a consistently married household.

The study also acknowledged that divorce is not the only lifestyle trend affecting the environment - the demise of multigenerational households and people remaining single for longer are other examples.