Over a million elderly in the UK struggling with debts: study

A UK study has revealed that over a million elderly people were struggling to pay off debts with a generation used to credit cards and mortgages reaching retirement, The Telegraph reported today.

The traditional image of older people as being debt-averse and determined to live ''within their means'' had come under strain due partly to a more relaxed attitude to borrowing from the so-called ''baby boomer'' generation, the study concludes.

Falling returns from savings after the worst downturn since the Great Depression as also the effects of the reliance on interest-only mortgages had also played a part, it found the report said.

Joint research by Age UK and the International Longevity Centre (ILC) revealed that, while fewer older people were borrowing on credit cards or other means than before the financial crisis, the average amount of debt they ran up had increased by as much as two thirds over six years.

Also the proportion of older people who were classed as having ''problem'' debt had increased to around a third of those with borrowings overall.

Significantly, the research revealed that those struggling to repay debts were more than twice as likely to experience the breakdown of a marriage or long-term relationship as those who did not.

They researchers also found significantly higher incidence of depression among those struggling to stay afloat as debts increased.

Researchers tracked the experiences of over 1,300 people in the last decade, using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), which charted the lives of thousands of over 50s.

They found that the equivalent of 400,000 older people in the UK were paying over £85 a week to only service unsecured debt while some had debts from unsecured lending of as much £15,000.