The latest unemployment figures confirm once again that two-thirds of the 450,000 people who are without a job in this country are men. The same phenomenon has been found in other countries. Basically, the recession has disproportionately hit construction and manufacturing, traditional male industries. This is why some commentators have called the recession a ‘mancession’.

Customarily we think that financial strain on a couple increases the chances of divorce and with good reason, because it does. But contrary to expectations the recession is not causing a rise in divorce, quite the contrary in fact.

In Britain, America and Ireland the rate of divorce has gone down since the start of the recession two years ago. In Ireland, the number of divorces in 2009 was eight percent lower than in 2008.

What explains this? Family lawyers believe one factor is the collapse in property prices. Divorce is seemingly less attractive if you’re going to have less money than you thought you would at the end of it.

Couples who divorce will often say that they had no choice but to divorce, that their marriage was unbearable. But the drop in the number of divorces would indicate that for some couples their marriage is bearable after all when the value of their assets is less than it used to be.

It will be interesting to find out what happens to those couples once the price of property rises again. If they stay together anyway, it will show that they were able to patch up their differences in the meantime.

If so, there will be a lesson in that for other couples, namely work at the marriage because if you do, better times may come.