THE number of women bankrupts has risen by one third in the past five years, according to new research.

A combination of women’s growing financial independence and the fact that they continue to earn less than men means that 42 per cent of bankrupts are female.

Keith Stevens, insolvency partner at Wilkins Kennedy, a firm of accountants, said: “The gap between incomes is narrowing, but women are taking on more financial risk and may need to moderate their spending in the short term.

“We are seeing a big increase in the number of women going through the bankruptcy process with credit-card debt, and a high proportion of these are young single women.”

Consumer groups agreed that more women risk bankruptcy by taking on too much debt. Keith Tondeur, director of Credit Action, a money education charity, said: “Traditionally, debt was a male thing, but the gap between men and women is narrowing very quickly. We now see both men and women very regularly with debts of £40,000 to £50,000. Women with five-figure debts are very common and some have six-figure debts, not including mortgages.”

Women are more likely to transfer debt from existing cards to plastic offering short-term zero per cent interest rates, Wilkins Kennedy said.

Instead of adjusting their standard of living to reflect their salary, women are prone to live beyond their means and run up fresh credit-card bills.

“The debt eventually catches up with them,” Mr Stevens said. “When the zero per cent grace period expires, they then hit problems.”

Which?, the consumer group, blamed the lending practices of credit-card companies. The association is worried that women are targeted with slick marketing material.

Laurence Baxter, senior policy adviser at Which?, said: “Women are particularly susceptible to companies’ tactics of teasing customers into certain spending patterns. They want people to spend money today and pay it off another time.”

Another factor in the growth of female bankrupts is the rise in the number of women with mortgages. Research by the Halifax shows that the proportion of new home loans taken out by single women has more than doubled in the past 20 years and now accounts for nearly one quarter of the total market. Mr Stevens said: “In 1985, the average woman would have fewer financial liabilities, but now a lot of women have mortgages and have had to borrow at very high multiples of their income.”

A recent survey into British saving habits from National Savings & Investments revealed that women save less than men. “With women typically saving a smaller proportion of their income than men, they have less to fall back on when debts begin to spiral, and their emergency cash reserves can be depleted much quicker,” Mr Stevens said.

Official figures released this month showed the number of people sliding into personal insolvency to be at its highest for three decades. Personal bankruptcies in England and Wales reached 13,229 in the first three months of the year.

Changes in the law have made it easier for people with money worries to choose bankruptcy as an escape route from their problems.

Wilkins Kennedy analysed a sample of 800 bankrupts across England and Wales in April and May.

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