New figures from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) have shown that men are more likely than women to need an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA).

According to the debt charity the main reason for the figures is that on average men are solvent more often than women are.
The CCCS said that around 55% of their IVA’s went to men in 2009 and that they tend to recommend IVA’s and bankruptcy as options to men more often than they would to women.

For bankruptcies however, the statistics were almost half and half for men and women, with IVA’s being the more common result for men.

CCCS spokeswoman Frances Walker said of the findings: "This may be the one equality which women may not want to aspire to."

Figures from CCCS showed that single women tend to owe 17% less on average than single men, with men owing an average on £19,231 while women owe £16,912.

IVA’s are a formal arrangement between a person and their creditors which often sees people with debt problems repaying an affordable monthly amount over a 5 year period. After the set period the remaining debt is usually written off, which can be anything up to 70%.