Single mothers often overindebted

More and more people are falling into the debt trap

06/25/2013

More and more people fall into the debt trap: Whether through unemployment, separation and divorce, death of close relatives, illness or lack of knowledge in dealing with money and consumption offers - more and more people lose control of their financial situation and get into over-indebtedness. Most affected are single mothers and single men.

Most private households finance consumer goods through loans
There are many reasons why people are over-indebted, because like the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BfFSFJ) in a booklet on the subject „debts“ writes, it is nowadays „For the majority of households, it is normal to finance long-term real estate and consumer goods with loans“. Normally this is not a problem either, at least as long as the due payments can be paid in addition to the livelihood expenses from current receipts - but that is not or no longer the case, then the debt turns into over-indebtedness.

Single-parent women are disproportionately affected
According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), however, there are forms of life in which high debts are particularly frequent: 14 percent of consumers who visited a debt counseling center in 2012 were, were single mothers - a disproportionate value, because that was the case „their share [...] more than twice their share of the total population“, as the statistics experts write in a recent press release.

Childless couples are comparatively rarely overindebted
Also disproportionately, according to the Office, the proportion of lone men among the over-indebted persons, because „more than every fourth person (28%) looked after by debt counseling services was included in this group“ - a value that is also well above their share of the total population. By contrast, according to Destatis, childless couples are comparatively seldom affected by an over-indebted situation, as their share was 16%, while the share of the total population is about twice as high.

Amount of debt averaged just under 34 000 euros
The amount of debt varied greatly, according to Destatis „Persons who sought help from a debt counseling service in 2012 received an average of nearly 34,000 euros in debt at the beginning of the consultation“, in half of the consultants, however, the debt was not higher than around 14 300 euros.

Relatively high debt of young people to telephone companies
Conspicuous, according to the Federal Statistical Office also „the relatively high debts of young people towards telephone companies“, because „Under 25-year-old debtors had on average more than 1 400 euros in debt to this group of creditors, that was 19% of their total liabilities“, so office further. On average, however, the proportion of debt to telephone companies was only 3% (845 euros).

Over-indebtedness statistics 2012 based on data from 238 debt counseling services
For the „Over-indebtedness statistics 2012“ The statisticians had analyzed the data of 238 of the total of about 1 000 debtor advice centers in Germany, whereby the participation in these statistics is voluntary. These counseling centers had provided anonymous data from more than 84,000 counseled persons with their consent. (No)

Image: Jorma Bork