One in two young French people has already wanted to break up since the start of the health crisis.
- France has 29.2 million households.
- In 2016, 20% of French people over the age of 15 lived alone, compared to 13% in 1990.
One in four people in a couple (27%) admit to having wanted to break up with their spouse during the periods of confinement and/or successive curfews imposed since March 2020, according to a new Ifop survey for YesWeBloom.com.
This temptation has particularly affected young couples (50% of those under 30, compared to 14% of those over 60) and the most economically or financially precarious. 46% of men with a net monthly income per individual of less than €900 (compared to 21% among those earning more than €2,500) wanted to leave, as did 35% of female workers (compared to barely 23% of managers).
A lack of communication
If the deterioration of a couple relationship is generally a multi-causal phenomenon, “it is clear that certain factors have contributed more than others to the weakening of relationships experienced since the first confinement, and that their impact is very gendered…”, comment the pollsters. For women who feel that the confinements have strained their couple relationship, it is the lack of communication that comes first (70%), ahead of sexual disagreement (64%) and work-related stress (59%). . Among men, differences in sexual needs (67%) played the most role, far ahead of other problems such as the lack of time spent together or disagreements over money.
No action
If the desire to break up has crossed the minds of many couples during successive confinements and curfews, they are far from having all taken action, given the great stability of the marital itineraries of the French between the start of the first confinement (March 17, 2020) and the end of the third (May 19, 2021). 89% of individuals aged 18 to 69 have exactly the same marital situation today as before the first confinement.
“The lack of action is symptomatic of a certain wait-and-see attitude, which is all in all classic in times of crisis (e.g. war, economic crisis), which is undoubtedly due to the fear of loneliness – especially in the working conditions. isolation and meeting imposed by the Covid-19 – but also for practical reasons (e.g. housing, children’s school, etc.) and financial: a separation, whether it is a divorce, a break in Pacs or a break-up of a common-law union, generally resulting in a lower standard of living for the ex-spouses”, comments François Kraus, director of the “Gender, sexualities and sexual health” pole of Ifop.
However, in the younger generations, unions were much more often broken or renewed. 20% of young people under 25 no longer have the same marital situation as in March 2020.
Many divorces postponed until after the health crisis
If this desire to break up seems for many to have remained at the intention stage, a certain number of people in a couple nevertheless express the wish to take action once the health crisis has passed. 12% of people in a couple want to distance themselves from their partner at the end of the crisis, including 4% permanently. “And if we extrapolate this percentage on the basis of the 28 million people aged 18 to 69 currently in a relationship, this risk of rupture would concern at least one million couples”, calculates the Ifop.
Very logically, the desire to break up definitively emanates above all from people whose relationship has been most negatively affected by the confinements, namely young people under 30 – especially men (23%) – inhabitants of large urban areas ( 16% of inhabitants in the Paris conurbation) and people with the lowest incomes (example: 26% of men with a net monthly income per person of less than €900).
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