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• Published: 02 August 2021

Effects of divorce and widowhood on subsequent health behaviours and outcomes in a sample of middle-aged and older Australian adults

• Ding Ding 1 , 2 ,
• Joanne Gale 1 , 2 ,
• Adrian Bauman 1 , 2 ,
• Philayrath Phongsavan 1 , 2 &
• Binh Nguyen 1 , 2  

Scientific Reports volume  11 , Article number:  15237 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Epidemiology
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Marital disruption is a common life event with potential health implications. We examined the prospective association of divorce/widowhood with subsequent lifestyles, psychological, and overall health outcomes within short and longer terms using three waves of data from the 45 and Up Study in Australia (T1, 2006–09; T2, 2010; T3, 2012–16). Marital status and health-related outcomes were self-reported using validated questionnaires. Nine outcomes were examined including lifestyles (smoking, drinking, diet and physical activity), psychological outcomes (distress, anxiety and depression) and overall health/quality of life. Logistic regression was adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and baseline health outcomes. Of the 33,184 participants who were married at T1 (mean age 59.5 ± 9.3 years), after 3.4 years, 2.9% became divorced and 2.4% widowed at T2. Recent divorce was positively associated with smoking, poor quality of life, high psychological distress, anxiety and depression at T2. Similar but weaker associations were observed for widowhood. However, these associations were much attenuated at T3 (5 years from T2). Marital disruption in midlife or at an older age can be detrimental to health, particularly psychological health in the short term. Public awareness of the health consequences of spousal loss should be raised. Resources, including professional support, should be allocated to help individuals navigate these difficult life transitions.

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Introduction.

Marital status and transitions may have important implications for health. It is generally well recognised that marriage can be protective for health and reduce morbidity and mortality 1 . Possible explanations for the beneficial effects of marriage may include a sense of greater social and financial support, overall healthier behavioural patterns, and self-selection where healthier individuals tend to marry 2 . In contrast, transitions out of marriage, such as becoming divorced or widowed, are stressful life events that have been associated with poor health and survival outcomes 1 , 3 , 4 . Marital disruption is a common life event: around 42% of marriages in England and Wales 5 and about a third of marriages in Australia end in divorce  6 . Between 1990 and 2010, the divorce rate in American adults aged 50 years and above doubled, implying a rising trend of “grey divorce” 7 . Even if a marriage survives without divorce, it will inevitably end with the death of a spouse, leaving the other one in widowhood, often for years. Several meta-analyses have shown that compared to married adults, divorced and widowed adults have a higher risk of mortality from all causes 1 , 8 , 9 and specific causes including cardiovascular disease (CVD) 4 and cancer 10 .

Contrary to the consistent observations about the disadvantage in health and survival following divorce or widowhood, the mechanisms underpinning these associations are less understood 11 . Amato’s Divorce-Stress-Adjustment Perspective postulates that the process of divorce leads to stressors, which in turn, increases emotional, behavioural and health risk. The risk, which could be either short- or long-term, may differ by individual characteristics and circumstances 12 . Within this model, psychological distress is a significant intermediate outcome of marital dissolution/bereavement, which may arise from financial and emotional challenges, and can lead to adverse health outcomes 11 . Another plausible intermediate outcome includes changes in lifestyle behaviours, which may be developed as a coping mechanism to deal with psychological distress, or a response to environmental, financial and other circumstantial changes. Such psychological and behavioural outcomes could in turn affect health, quality of life and wellbeing in the immediate-to-long term and longevity in the long term. To date, there has been limited longitudinal research on how divorce/widowhood affects both psychological wellbeing 13 and lifestyle behaviours 14 , 15 , 16 . Furthermore, individuals respond and adjust to marital disruption differently 12 . Specifically men and women may have different coping strategies to psychological stressors 17 , and suffer from different consequences as a result of marital disruption 18 . For example, recent marital disruption has been associated with increased alcohol intake 19 and decreased body mass index and vegetable intake in men 14 , and higher physical activity levels and a higher risk of smoking initiation/relapse in women 15 . Individuals with better socioeconomic status 20 and social resources, such as supportive friends 21 , have also been reported to better cope with marital disruption.

With most marriages ending in divorce or widowhood, understanding the implications of marital disruption on health has important relevance to the life of many around the world. To date, most research has focused on the more “distal” outcomes, such as mortality. It is important to investigate modifiable and immediate outcomes on the pathways that lead to ill-health so that health deterioration may be prevented. It is also informative to examine whether such potential health effects persist over time. Such knowledge could improve the current understanding of the effects of major life events on health and inform interventions that aim to help individuals during marriage disruption. Moreover, previous research more commonly focused on divorce in younger populations, while the body of literature on divorce in older populations is much smaller despite the large proportion and the rising trend in “grey divorce” 7 . The objectives of this study were to examine the association of divorce and widowhood with subsequent changes in groups of selected outcomes: (1) health-related lifestyles, (2) psychological health, and (3) overall health and wellbeing, within both immediate and longer terms in middle-aged and older Australian adults.

Study population

Study participants were a subsample from the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study. Between February 2006 and December 2009, 267,153 adults aged 45 years and above from the state of New South Wales, Australia, submitted the baseline survey (T1, participation rate: 18%) 22 . Prospective participants were randomly sampled from the Services Australia (formerly the Australian Government Department of Human Services) Medicare enrolment database, which provides near complete coverage of the population. People aged 80 and over and residents of rural and remote areas were oversampled. In 2010, the first 100,000 respondents were invited to participate in a sub-sample follow-up study (T2): the Social, Economic, and Environmental Factor study (SEEF) (participation rate: 64.4%) 23 . Between 2012 and 2016, all living baseline participants were invited to participate in a full-sample follow-up, and 142,500 (53%) returned the survey (T3). Participants completed consent forms for all surveys. The baseline and full-sample follow-up data collection was approved by the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: HREC 05035) and the SEEF study by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: 10-2009/12187). The reporting of our analysis follows the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines (Supplementary file).

The study sample for the main analysis (Analysis 1) that focused on immediate outcomes included 33,184 men and women who reported to be in a married or cohabiting relationship at T1 and completed the marital status question at T2 (Supplementary Fig.  1 ). For those with additional follow-up data at T3, we conducted a subgroup analysis on the longer-term effects of marital disruption (Analysis 2) among those who reported to be married at T1, reported marital status at T2 and T3, and did not change marital status between T2 and T3 (Supplementary Fig.  2 ).

Sex-specific baseline and full-sample follow-up questionnaires can be found at https://www.saxinstitute.org.au/our-work/45-up-study/questionnaires/ . The SEEF questionnaire is included in Supplementary File.

Exposure variable

For the purpose of the study, both divorce/separation and widowhood were considered marital disruption 14 , 24 , but were considered as separate categories in the analysis because the two events usually happen at different stages in life within distinct circumstances and may have different implications on health 14 . For the purpose of the analysis, we combined those who were married and in a de facto relationship (living with a partner) together as “married”, because in Australia, those in a de facto relationship are considered legally similar to married couples 25 . In our sample, those in a de facto relationship are slightly younger than their legally married counterparts and account for 7% of the participants who were classified as “married” at T1. For Analysis 1, those who were married at both T1 and T2 were defined as “remained married”, those who were married at T1 but reported to be single, divorced or separated at T2 were defined as “recently divorced/seperated (‘divorced’ thereafter)” and those who were married at T1 but widowed at T2 were defined as “recently widowed”. For Analysis 2, those who reported to be in a married relationship at all three time points were defined as “continuously married”, and those who reported to be single, divorced or separated at T2 and T3 were defined as “remained divorced” and those who reported to be widowed at T2 and T3 were defined as “remained widowed”. Because the objective of Analysis 2 is to examine long-term implications of divorce and widowhood, we focused the analysis on those whose marital status remained the same between T2 and T3, and excluded those who became divorced or widowed between T2 and T3 due to the recency of events (n = 1768), those who remarried/re-partnered between T2 and T3 due to the lack of consistent exposure (n = 145), and those who changed between divorced and widowed because the events were difficult to interpret (n = 27).

Outcome measures

We examined nine self-reported outcome variables in three categories: (1) health-related lifestyles: smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity; (2) psychological outcomes: psychological distress, anxiety and depression; (3) overall health and wellbeing: self-rated health and quality of life. Responses were coded as 1 for being “at risk” and 0 for “not at risk”, as described in Table 1 .

Covariates and effect modifiers

The following variables were selected as covariates: age (continuous), sex, educational attainment (up to 10 years, high school/diploma/trade, university), residential location (major city vs regional/remote, based on the Accessibility Remoteness Index of Australia 26 ), country of birth (Australia vs overseas) and follow-up time. Specifically, we selected education, rather than income, as a socioeconomic indicator, because previous research repeatedly concluded that education generally has the strongest effects on health behaviors 27 , and it has nearly complete data in the 45 and Up Study. Therefore, it has been consistently recommended as a stable and reliable socioeconomic indicator for the current cohort 28 , 29 .

In addition, several variables were selected as potential effect modifiers based on evidence from previous studies, including: age categories, sex, educational attainment and social support 14 , 17 , 21 , 30 , 31 , 32 . Based on previous evidence suggesting that friends’, rather than family’s support buffers health deterioration following marriage disruption 21 , we used one question from the Duke Social Support Index 33 to measure social support outside of family. The question asks about the number of people outside of home within one hour of travel one can depend on or feel close to. Based on previous investigation in the SEEF study, this single question had the most consistent association with psychological distress across sex and age categories and was therefore chosen as an indicator for social support 34 . Responses were dichotomised at the median into low (0–4 people) and high (5 + people).

Statistical analysis

Baseline sociodemographic characteristics and health-related outcomes of the three marital transition groups were compared using ANOVA and χ 2 tests. For Analysis 1, those who remained married served as the reference category when comparing outcomes with those who became divorced and widowed. For Analysis 2, those who were “continuously married” between T1 and T3 served as the reference category when comparing outcomes with those who “remained divorced” or “remained widowed”. Separate binary logistic regression models were fitted for each dichotomous outcome, adjusted for all covariates and the value of each outcome at T1. Effect modification was tested by including a multiplicative interaction term in the adjusted model followed by a likelihood ratio test. Given the small amount of missing data (< 8%), we used missingness as a category for analysis. Considering that people who became divorced or widowed by T2 may be at a higher risk for death or loss to follow up by T3, posing threats to selection bias, we conducted additional analyses outlined in Supplementary file (page 5 “Methodological supplement”). All statistical analyses were conducted using SAS 9.4 and significance levels were set at p  < 0.05.

Ethical approval

Approved by the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: HREC 05035) and the SEEF study by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: 10-2009/12187).

Baseline descriptive statistics

Of the 33,184 participants who were married at baseline (T1, 2006–2009), after a mean follow-up time of 3.35 (standard deviation [SD] = 0.95) years, 31,760 (95.7%) remained married at the first follow-up (T2, 2010), 616 (2.9%) became divorced and 808 (2.4%) became widowed. At T1, compared with those who remained married, those who recently divorced were younger and had slightly higher levels of education, were less likely to live in major cities and more likely to be born overseas. On the contrary, those who recently widowed were much older, predominantly females, had lower educational attainment, and were less likely to live in major cities (Table 2 ).

At T1, compared with those who remained married, those who recently divorced had around twice the prevalence of fair/poor self-rated health and quality of life, high psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and reported smoking. They also had a slightly higher prevalence of high alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and insufficient fruit and vegetable intake. Those who were recently widowed had a higher prevalence of fair/poor self-rated health and quality of life, high psychological distress, and physical inactivity, but lower prevalence of depression, smoking, at-risk alcohol consumption, and insufficient fruit and vegetable intake.

Analysis 1: short-term health outcomes following marital disruption

After adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, health-related outcomes at T1, and follow-up time, those who recently divorced had much higher odds of fair/poor quality of life (Odds Ratio [OR] = 2.98), high psychological distress (OR = 2.78), smoking (OR = 2.40), anxiety (OR = 2.23) and depression (OR = 2.92) at T2 (Table 3 ). The associations of divorce with fair/poor self-rated health (OR = 1.22), high alcohol consumption (OR = 1.12), physical inactivity (OR = 1.04) and insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption (OR = 1.25) were non-significant. For nearly all outcomes, adjusting for covariates attenuated the associations. When comparing those who were recently widowed with those who remained married, based on adjusted analysis, recent widows had higher odds of fair/poor quality of life (OR = 1.80), high psychological distress (OR = 1.92), anxiety (OR = 1.55), depression (OR = 2.11), smoking (OR = 2.51), and insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption (OR = 1.60). Recent widows also had a marginally lower prevalence of high alcohol consumption at T2 (OR = 0.75).

Several sociodemographic characteristics seemed to have moderated the association between marital disruption and short-term health outcomes (Table 4 ). Specifically, the association between divorce and quality of life was the strongest (OR = 4.91) in the oldest group (75 + years), but the association between widowhood and quality of life was the strongest (OR = 3.35) in the youngest group (45–59 years). On the other hand, the associations of both divorce and widowhood with psychological distress were the strongest in the youngest group (OR = 2.98 and 3.53, respectively). The association between divorce and high psychological distress was stronger among those with lower education attainment (OR = 2.96, up to 10 years education; OR = 3.06, high school/diploma) but the association between widowhood and psychological distress was stronger among those with high educational attainment (OR = 4.20). The association of divorce with depression was much stronger in men (OR = 4.59) than women (OR = 1.60) but the association of widowhood was similar by sex. While there was no significant association between divorce and alcohol consumption, recent widowhood seemed to reduce the risk of high alcohol consumption among women (OR = 0.53). Finally, while there was no observed association between divorce and physical activity, widowhood was significantly associated with insufficient physical activity in those with a medium level of educational attainment only (OR = 1.46).

Analysis 2: long-term health outcomes following marital disruption

After an additional five years (mean = 4.98, SD = 0.53) of follow-up, a total of 21,605 participants reported marital status at the second follow-up (T3, 2012–2016) and did not change relationship status between T2 and T3, so that consistent relationship patterns could be determined and long-term outcomes of marital disruption that occurred between T2 and T3 could be examined. Of this subgroup of participants, 20,900 were consistently married (96.7%), 270 (1.25%) remained divorced and 435 (2.01%) remained widowed. The comparison of baseline characteristics across the three groups remained similar to that from Analysis 1 (Supplementary Table 1 ). When adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, health-related outcomes at T1, and follow-up time, those who remained divorced still had higher odds for most adverse health outcomes compared with those who were consistently married (Table 5 ), but the associations were much weaker compared with those observed in Analysis 1, and only reached statistical significance for insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption (OR = 1.55). Compared with those who were consistently married, those who remained widowed did not have consistently higher odds for adverse health outcomes and none of the associations was statistically significant. We did not find significant effect modification by age, sex, educational attainment, or social support.

This study examined the short- and long-term health outcomes following divorce and widowhood in a large population-based Australian sample of older men and women. The findings revealed strong and adverse short-term effects of marital disruption on health outcomes, particularly within the psychological health domain. These effects seemed to attenuate in the longer term.

A number of studies have examined the associations between marital status or marriage disruption and health, with relatively consistent findings suggesting a protective effect of marriage, and respectively detrimental effects of marital disruption. For example, systematic reviews and meta-analyses have consistently found an elevated risk of all-cause mortality in adults who are divorced 35 or widowed 1 , 8 , 9 , and the effects seemed to be mostly consistent across countries and geographic areas 1 , 9 . Wong et al. extended the outcomes for CVD and found similar associations between marital status and CVD events and mortality 4 . Our current study has extended previous research by examining a broad range of relatively proximal outcomes, and in a population-based sample ranging from middle age to the “oldest old”. Examining proximal outcomes could help understand the potential mechanisms (e.g., psychological distress, unhealthy lifestyles) for the observed association between marital disruption and distal endpoints, such as mortality. Understanding the potential mechanisms has been considered an important research agenda for future studies 35 . Involving a large sample with a broad age range allows us to examine the effect of marital disruption at different life stages, including the less researched transitions, such as divorce at an old age (grey divorce) 7 and widowhood at a younger age.

To date, several proposed mechanisms might explain the health disparities by marital status 4 . The predominant debate has centered around social selection versus causation 36 . While selection theory suggests that people with poorer health are less likely to enter or maintain long-term partnerships 4 , 36 , social causation theory postulates that marriage and partnership benefit individuals’ health through spousal support, companionship and financial stability 36 , 37 , 38 . Within the causation theory framework, it has been proposed that the stress related to spousal loss could affect physical, mental, emotional and behavioural health 4 , 36 , 38 , 39 , 40 . In the current study we tested various components of these theories by: (1) comparing baseline characteristics of participants with different marriage transitions, (2) adjusting for potential confounders that could have caused self-selection into maintained partnership, such as socioeconomic status, and (3) comparing between those who have divorced and widowed, which involve different levels of self-selection.

Based on the baseline comparison of participants with different marital transition categories, those who became divorced at T2 appeared to be distinctly different from the other categories at T1: they had around twice the prevalence of fair/poor self-rated health and quality of life, high psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and current smoking, compared with those who remained married between T1 and T2. In most cases, they had much worse health risk profiles than those who became widowed, despite the latter being significantly older. Such observations may provide supportive evidence for the social selection theory. However, given that the deterioration of marriage is a gradual process, which started from the time when couples still lived together 12 , a dysfunctional relationship could have adversely affected physical and mental health years before divorce or separation formally took place 12 . In both short- and longer-term analyses, adjusted associations were much attenuated from the unadjusted associations, suggesting that the potential characteristics underlying social selection to marriages, such as socioeconomic status, may have partially contributed to the observed “marital disruption effects”. However, the adjusted associations remained strong in most cases, implying the plausibility for a causal relationship. Finally, we found generally similar patterns of associations for divorce and widowhood; if social selection was the sole explanation for the detrimental health effects of marital disruption, then one should expect strong effects of divorce but much weaker-to-no effects of widowhood, because spousal death is usually beyond the control of the surviving spouse 24 .

As an attempt to explore different mechanistic pathways, assuming that marital disruption is causally linked to health deterioration, we tested several domains of health outcomes: health-related lifestyle behaviours, psychological outcomes, and overall health and wellbeing. Our findings suggest that most of the observed “marital disruption effects” occurred within the psychological domain, with divorce and widowhood triggering initial elevations in psychological distress, anxiety and depression. The much higher odds of smoking among those who recently divorced or widowed, similar to findings from a previous study 15 , could also be stress-related 41 . Contrary to previous studies 14 , 15 , 42 , we found no overall associations between marital disruption and physical activity or alcohol consumption. We did, however, find a positive association between divorce/widowhood and insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption. Based on a small number of studies, vegetable consumption seemed to decline in men 14 and women 15 following divorce and widowhood, and the literature has cited a lack of food preparation skills among men 14 and meal skipping as a grief reaction among women 15 . Finally, within the overall health and wellbeing domain, recently divorced and widowed individuals suffered from worsening quality of life but not self-rated health. This could be because the self-rated health question focuses on the physical manifestation of health while the quality of life question holistically captures physical, mental, emotional and other aspects of health, which are more likely to be influenced by marital disruption.

An interesting finding is that although marital disruption seemed to have a detrimental effect on various health outcomes in the short-term, after a further five years of follow-up, the effects were attenuated, and in some cases, disappeared. These findings confirmed the “divorce-stress-adjustment perspective” 12 , which postulates that marital disruption led to multiple stressors (e.g., loss of custody of children, economic decline), which, in turn, lead to negative emotional, behavioural and health outcomes. The process of “adjustment” takes time, and its severity and duration differ by individual characteristics 12 . Previous research found a similar “time effect” (where the negative consequences of marital disruption was attenuated over time) with depression 43 , first-time myocardial infarction 44 but mixed results with mortality 40 , 45 . However, it is important to distinguish our study from those with morbidity or mortality endpoints, which take longer to manifest. Given that outcomes in our study are conceptually proximal, and that most people have the psychological resilience to eventually recover from marriage disruption 46 , we could expect on average a stronger effect in the short-term than the long-term.

However, it is important to acknowledge individual differences in resilience to stressful transitions like divorce and widowhood 46 . We have tested for several potential effect modifiers and found several outcome-specific interactions. For example, overall, younger participants (aged 45–59 years at T1) seemed to have suffered more from both divorce and widowhood in terms of worsening quality of life and increasing psychological distress. This finding is concordant with previous research on marital transition and mortality 9 . In terms of psychological distress, participants with high educational attainment seemed to have coped with divorce the best but widowhood the worst. This is a new and unexpected finding and may be related to the higher levels of independence, resources and support among those with higher socioeconomic status to cope with an expected traumatic event, such as divorce. Widowhood is less planned and more permanent and may exert severe emotional stress on individuals in the short-term, regardless of skills, resources and support. Divorce had a much stronger impact on depression in men than women, which is consistent with the literature on divorce and mortality 8 , 9 . It has been documented that men are more likely to dramatically lose supportive social ties 9 and experience declined social support from their children following a divorce 47 . Finally, interestingly, women who were widowed seemed to have benefited from reduced heavy alcohol consumption. A previous study in France found that women decreased heavy drinking prior to and at the time of widowhood 48 . Some evidence suggests that husbands may influence wives’ drinking behaviour 49 , it is plausible that the death of a husband may be associated with reduced drinking occasions.

Limitations

The current study is the first to our knowledge to examine short- and longer-term effects of marital disruption on a broad range of physical, psychological and behavioural health outcomes in middle-aged and older adults. Strengths include a population-based sample, comprehensive proximal health outcomes, and examination of both divorce and widowhood. However, findings should be interpreted in light of limitations. First, some relevant information was not collected by the 45 and Up Study, such as relationship quality, the exact time of marital transition (we could only infer that the event happened between T1 and T2), the long-term cumulative marital history (e.g., the total number of marriages and broken relationships) 35 . Such information is important to further elucidate whether the adverse health effects of marital disruption are due to social selection or causation. While this study focused on marital disruption, the other type of marital transition, namely remarriage could further affect health behaviours and outcomes. However, we did not model this transition because of the small number of participants who remarried and the lack of repeated measures to ascertain long-term effects of remarriage. Second, there was some evidence for selection bias as those who became divorced or widowed by T2 were more likely to become lost to follow-up by T3 (Supplementary file). Third, the number of participants who became divorced or widowed during the study follow-up was small, limiting the power of detecting potential associations and effect modification. Fourth, the 45 and Up Study cohort was not population representative and participants were on average healthier than the general population. However, a study comparing the current cohort with a population representative sample in New South Wales found the estimates for the associations between risk factors and health outcomes to be similar, despite the differences in risk factor prevalence 50 . Finally, it is important to note that the current study was conducted based on a sample aged 45 years and above and we only examined the effects of marital disruption in midlife and at an older age. Findings may not generalise to younger populations.

Conclusions

This current Australian study extends previous evidence on marital transition and health and suggests that marital disruption can be a vulnerable life stage, particularly for certain subgroups, such as men. Findings from the study have important public health implications. Given the ubiquitous and inevitable nature of marital disruption, it is important to raise public awareness of its potential health effects and develop strategies to help individuals navigate such difficult life transitions. Physicians and other health practitioners who have access to regularly updated patient information may play an important role in identifying at-risk individuals, monitoring their health and referring them to potential interventions and support programs.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Sax Institute upon application and payment, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of the Sax Institute.

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Acknowledgements

This research was completed using data collected through the 45 and Up Study ( www.saxinstitute.org.au ). The 45 and Up Study is managed by the Sax Institute in collaboration with major partner Cancer Council NSW; and partners: the National Heart Foundation of Australia (NSW Division); NSW Ministry of Health; NSW Government Family & Community Services—Ageing, Careers and the Disability Council NSW; and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. We thank the many thousands of people participating in the 45 and Up Study.

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Ding, D., Gale, J., Bauman, A. et al. Effects of divorce and widowhood on subsequent health behaviours and outcomes in a sample of middle-aged and older Australian adults. Sci Rep 11 , 15237 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93210-y

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The future of divorce support: Is “digital” enough in presence of conflict?

Ana ciprić.

1 Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Denmark

Gert Martin Hald

Jenna marie strizzi, theis lange, david austin.

2 School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Melbourne Victoria, Australia

Søren Sander

Camilla stine Øverup, associated data.

Divorce conflict is the main driver of adverse postdivorce health adjustments among divorcing families. Despite the growing potential of online divorce support programs, there is concern that such solutions might not be sufficient to impact health‐related disparities among high‐conflict divorcees. The present study examined the effectiveness of the digital “Cooperation after Divorce” intervention as a function of conflict among 1856 recently divorced Danish residents. Linear mixed‐effect regression modeling suggested that, although higher levels of divorce conflict at judicial divorce predicted worse health outcomes up to 1 year following divorce, the effectiveness of the digital divorce intervention did not vary as a function of the initial level of divorce conflict. Individuals in the intervention group with higher conflict in divorce still reported worse health at 12 months follow‐up than those with lower levels of divorce conflict; however, much lower than the control group.

INTRODUCTION

Broadly consistent with most developed nations, nearly 40%–45% of marriages in Denmark end in divorce (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  2016 ; European Commission,  2015 ; Statistics Denmark‐Divorce,  2020 ). Divorce has been linked to a number of negative mental and physical health outcomes for the individuals involved (Bracke et al.,  2010 ; Corcoran & Nagar,  2010 ; Hald, Ciprić, Sander, et al.,  2020 ; Kjeld et al.,  2020 ; Nielsen et al.,  2014 ; Sander, Strizzi, et al.,  2020 ; Sbarra,  2015 ; Strizzi et al.,  2021 ; Walid & Zaytseva,  2011 ). The quality of the divorcees' relationship during divorce is suggested to be a critical moderator of postdivorce adjustment (Amato,  2010 ). The quality of divorcees' postdivorce relationship is determined by a number of factors, including the ability to cooperate in important areas of postdivorce life (e.g., child‐rearing and managing finances), the ability to resolve disagreements effectively, and the general attitude toward the former spouse (Hald et al.,  2019 ). Typically, these factors are included in the measurement of divorce conflict (Bonach,  2005 ; Hald et al.,  2019 ; Johnston,  1994 ; Symoens et al.,  2014 ). In this article, we specifically focus on divorce conflict at the time of judicial divorce and its associations with mental and physical health at 1 year post divorce and investigate whether the previously documented effects of the “Cooperation after Divorce” (CAD) digital intervention (Cipric et al.,  2020 ; Hald, Ciprić, Øverup, et al.,  2020 ; Hald, Ciprić, Sander, et al.,  2020 ; Øverup et al.,  2020 ; Sanders, Hald, et al.,  2020 ; Sander, Strizzi, et al.,  2020 ) are influenced by the level of divorce conflict at judicial divorce.

DIVORCE CONFLICT

Up to 80% of divorcees report some degree of conflict with their former spouse (Bonach,  2005 ; Hutson,  2007 ; Symoens et al.,  2014 ). High‐conflict divorces constitute approximately 5%–25% of the divorcing population but occupy up to 90% of family court resources (Coates et al.,  2004 ; Neff & Cooper,  2004 ; Ottosen et al.,  2017 ; Smyth & Moloney,  2017 ). Although there is no internationally standardized definition of divorce conflict, in this study, we understand high divorce conflict to comprise (1) pervasive negative exchanges and (2) a hostile, insecure, emotional environment (Anderson et al.,  2010 ; Hald et al.,  2019 ; Ottosen et al.,  2017 ). Further, there are three dimensions that characterize divorce conflict and its expression (see also Hald et al.,  2019 ). These include (1) the domain dimension, which concerns disagreements over divorce issues, such as finances or childrearing, (2) the tactical dimension, which concerns the manner in which disagreements are managed and resolved, and (3) the attitudinal dimension, which concerns the degree of hostility, (mis)trust, or negative emotion toward the former spouse (Hald et al.,  2019 ; Johnston,  1994 ).

More generally, divorce conflict is seen as a risk factor for a host of mental and physical health problems for adults and children. These include distress and reduced well‐being (Amato,  2000 ,  2010 ,  2014 ; Lamela et al.,  2016 ; Sander, Strizzi, et al.,  2020 ; Strizzi et al.,  2021 ; Symoens et al.,  2014 ), and mood and anxiety disorders (Hald, Ciprić, Øverup, et al.,  2020 ; Hald, Ciprić, Sander, et al.,  2020 ; Kalmijn & Monden,  2006 ; Liu & Chen,  2006 ; Symoens et al.,  2014 ; Thuen,  2001 ), as well as reduced physical health in general (Liu & Umberson,  2008 ; Sander, Strizzi, et al.,  1991 , 2020 ). Moreover, it has been suggested that the effects of high conflict divorces on children may lead to negative lifetime effects that are worse than the immediate effects of the divorce itself (Booth & Amato,  2001 ). This may be due to parental hostility (van Dijk et al.,  2020 ) and impaired coparenting (Lamela et al.,  2016 ; van Dijk et al.,  2020 ), which may detrimentally affect the long‐term psychosocial adjustment of the child (Amato,  2006 ,  2010 ; Booth & Amato,  2001 ; Lansford,  2009 ; Polak & Saini,  2019 ; van Dijk et al.,  2020 ).

Although adverse outcomes associated with divorce conflict are well documented, there is a lack of longitudinal research that could help to understand how, and in which way, conflict influences postdivorce mental and physical health trajectories over time, especially in the first year following a judicial divorce. Most of the research to date has examined the influence of divorce conflict on health long after the judicial divorce (Amato,  2000 ,  2010 ,  2014 ; Kalmijn & Monden,  2006 ; Lamela et al.,  2016 ; Liu & Chen,  2006 ; Liu & Umberson,  2008 ; Symoens et al.,  2014 ; Thuen,  2001 ). This extended time period makes it difficult to identify whether the long‐term poor health outcomes documented may have been a result of long‐term divorce conflict (Amato, 2001; Grych,  2005 ; Polak & Saini,  2019 ), the severity of the initial divorce conflict at judicial divorce, or both. Consequently, research that targets divorcees early in the divorce process, as well as prospective methods, are needed to better understand how initial divorce conflict levels at judicial divorce may influence postdivorce health adjustment. Such knowledge would help inform clinicians, policymakers, and public health professionals about the impact of divorce conflict levels at judicial divorce on divorcees' long‐term health, and thus assist with the identification of couples most at risk and determining the extent to which intervention may be effective in modifying negative health trajectories.

DIGITAL INTERVENTION IN DIVORCE

National administrations are increasingly working to provide strategies for reducing conflict and promoting mental health for divorcing families. For example, in many US states, divorce education is mandated as a prerequisite for obtaining judicial divorce (Schramm & Becher,  2020 ). The most common approaches to divorce education are based on face‐to‐face communication, similar to services such as therapy, counseling, mediation, and parental coordination (Amato,  2014 ; Neff & Cooper,  2004 ). Although documented to be effective in improving coparenting and mental health (Bowers et al.,  2014 ; Schramm et al.,  2018 ; Turner et al.,  2019 ), the time and monetary costliness of these programs highlight a growing need for online self‐directed approaches (Bowers et al.,  2011 ; Schramm & Becher,  2020 ). Indeed, online‐based programs have been shown to be as effective as face‐to‐face approaches in coparenting education (Schramm & McCaulley,  2012 ). From a public health perspective, one of the most promising digital divorce interventions currently in operation is “Cooperation after Divorce (CAD)”.

The CAD intervention is an entirely online‐based educational platform that comprises 17 digital modules arranged into three overall themes: yourself, children, and coparenting, with each module taking up to 30 min to complete (see Supporting Information  1 ). The CAD embodies a user activation principle (Sander et al.,  2021 ) such that participants are activated with interactive exercise elements every 3–4 min to ensure user engagement. This also helps to personalize the content by asking users to choose situations or challenges that they recognize from their own lives and subsequently receive advice and feedback based on their choice. After the study completion, all divorcees with children under the age of 18 years are offered to complete the online education free of charge by the Agency of Family Law in Denmark.

Using randomized controlled trial (RCT) design studies, CAD has been shown effective in reducing stress (Cipric et al.,  2020 ), depression, anxiety, somatization (Hald, Ciprić, Øverup, et al.,  2020 ), and hostility (Øverup et al.,  2020 ), as well as improving general mental and physical health post divorce (Sander, Hald, et al.,  2020 ) with the effect generally maintained over the course of the first year following a judicial divorce. However, no research has yet investigated the CAD RCT trial data to determine whether the intervention works equally well across levels of divorce conflict at judicial divorce. There is a concern that the online mode of intervention/help/education might not be effective or sufficient for high conflict divorces. The assumption here is that high conflict divorces may require a more personal and hands‐on approach to effectively reduce the conflict and conflict‐related health sequelae (Schramm & Becher,  2020 ). Therefore, it is important to investigate whether the severity of divorce conflict influences the effectiveness of online interventions, such as CAD.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The present study investigates the following research questions:

• Research Question 1: Are divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce associated with stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health during the first year post divorce?
• Research Question 2: Do the trajectories of stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health over a 1‐year period post divorce vary as a function of divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce?
• Research Question 3: Do the intervention effects of the CAD digital intervention on stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health over the course of 1 year post divorce vary as a function of divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce? That is, is the intervention more or less effective for participants in the intervention group as a function of divorce conflict levels of juridical divorce?

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Data were obtained from a 12‐month (four‐wave) longitudinal RCT study of a digital postdivorce intervention platform “Cooperation after Divorce” (CAD). The study assessed the effects of the CAD intervention on general mental and physical health, self‐perceived stress, anxiety, depression, hostility, and somatization post judicial divorce (see Cipric et al.,  2020 ; Hald, Ciprić, Øverup et al.,  2020 ; Øverup et al.,  2020 ; Sander, Hald, et al.,  2020 ; Sander, Strizzi, et al.,  2020 ). Data collection spanned from January 2016 to January 2018 and was conducted in collaboration with the Danish State Administration (DSA). When individuals received their divorce decree, they were also sent an invitation letter to participate in the present study together with study information and a digital link to the online questionnaire. The DSA did not include the study invitation in all divorce decrees sent out during the data collection period and did not keep a record of the total number of invitations sent out, which precludes an estimation of response rate. For 70% of divorcees in Denmark, judicial divorce is granted within 2–3 weeks of applying for divorce, without any separation period. Participants were randomized to either the intervention group (1031) or the control group (825). This was accomplished by sending invitations to either the intervention or control group alternately during 28 consecutive 2‐week intervals (for a total of 110 weeks). Although uneven allocation ratios occurred, there were no significant differences observed in the odds ratios for belonging to either the intervention or control group. For the uneven allocation ratios, please see Cipric et al. ( 2020 ). The baseline assessment was followed by three further survey assessments (at 3, 6, and 12 months post divorce). The study was approved by the Danish Data Protection Agency and was exempt from further ethical evaluations by the Scientific Ethical Committees of Denmark. To read more about the study procedure, please see Cipric et al. ( 2020 ), Hald, Ciprić, Øverup, et al. ( 2020 ), Øverup et al. ( 2020 ), Sanders, Hald, et al. ( 2020 ), and Sanders, Strizzi, et al. ( 2020 ).

Participants

The criteria for participation in the study were to have Danish citizenship, to be previously married and granted a divorce by the DSA between January 2016 and January 2018, to be able to read and write in the Danish language, and to have access to the Internet. Of 1856 study participants, there were 1239 women and 617 men, with a mean age of approximately 45 years. A total of 89% of the sample reported being parents with, on average, two children per participant. On average, participants had been married for 12.83 (SD  =  7.99) years and initiated study participation within 4.62 (SD = 7.2) days of judicial divorce. For 88.1% of the sample, this was their first divorce. For more detailed information on participants' sociodemographic characteristics, see Table  1 and Cipric et al. ( 2020 ), Hald, Ciprić, Øverup et al. ( 2020 ), Hald, Ciprić, Sander et al. ( 2020 ), Sanders, Hald et al. ( 2020 ), and Sander, Strizzi et al. ( 2020 ).

Participant sociodemographic information ( n  = 1856)

Note : No group differences were detected.

The study sample was representative of the background population of people who divorced in the country during the study period (the data obtained from Statistic Denmark) in terms of age, income, and marriage duration ( p  > 0.05). However, in an alignment with the expectations that women and higher educated individuals would be more likely to seek treatment for psychological symptoms (Wellstead,  2011 ), our sample included more female individuals, χ 2 (1, n  = 1856) = 208.45, p  < .001, and more highly educated, χ 2 (2, n  = 1856) = 1135.23, p  < 0.001, individuals, who had divorced fewer times ( t (1855)  = −8.47, p  < 0.001), compared to the background population.

As expected for longitudinal online assessments (Cugelman et al.,  2011 ; Eysenbach,  2005 ; Geraghty et al.,  2013 ; Lie et al.,  2017 ), the response rate at T 2 dropped to 27.9% ( n  = 541) compared to T 1 ( n  = 1882), although attrition stabilized thereafter ( n T 3  = 466 and n T 4  = 420; see Supporting Information  2 ). Comparing those who only participated at T 1 to those who responded to a follow‐up survey on sociodemographic and health outcome variables, logistic regression showed that those who stayed in the study had slightly higher odds of being older (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.99, p  < 0.01) and of better physical health (AOR = 0.91, p  < 0.01), suggesting only a small bias in attrition (see Supporting Information  3 ).

Sociodemographic and divorce‐related variables

The following sociodemographic variables included in the present study were assessed: (a) gender 0 = “male” and 1 = “female,” (b) age at divorce (in years), (c) the number of children (number), (d) the number of previous divorces (number), (e) marriage duration (in years from marriage date to judicial divorce date), and (f) judicial divorce duration (in days from judicial divorce date to study initiation date).

Divorce conflict

The degree of divorce conflict was assessed by the 6‐item self‐report Divorce Conflict Scale (DCS) (Hald et al.,  2019 ). The DCS assesses conflict over three facets: (1) the domain dimension (areas of disagreements, e.g., child‐rearing or finances), (2) the tactical dimension (the manner in which disagreements are resolved and managed), and (3) the attitudinal dimension (the general level of trust and hostility related to the former spouse). Therefore, the six scale items included were: “How do you perceive the degree of conflict in connection with your divorce?,” “My former spouse and I are generally good at dealing with conflicts between us,” “During the last three months, communication with my ex has been good,” “My former spouse and I can both participate in important family events without creating a bad atmosphere,” “My former spouse and I have no trouble talking about issues concerning our child/children,” and “I respect my former spouse as a person,” with Liker‐type response options (see Hald et al.,  2019 ). The internal consistency of the scale was high in the present study (Cronbach's alpha = 0.88).

Mental and physical health variables

The level of self‐perceived stress levels was measured by the Danish version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Eskildsen et al.,  2015 ). The PSS is a 10‐item instrument with a five‐point Likert‐type response scale from 0 ( never ) to 4 ( very often ). Higher scores indicate higher self‐perceived stress levels. The instrument had high internal consistency throughout the study (Cronbach's alpha = 0.90–0.92).

Anxiety, depression, and hostility were assessed by the respective subscales from the Danish version of the Symptom Checklist‐90‐Revised (Derogatis,  2009 ). The anxiety subscale comprises 10 items, depression 13 items, and the hostility subscale comprises 6 items. The assessment is anchored on a five‐point Likert‐type scale with response options from 0 ( not at all ) to 4 ( very much ). Higher scores indicate higher symptom severity for all subscales. The measures demonstrated high internal consistency at all time points ( Cronbach's alpha  = 0.78–0.95).

General mental and physical health was assessed by the physical health and mental health summary variables of the second Danish version of the Short Form 36 (SF‐36) Health Assessment (Bjørner et al.,  1997 ; Maruish,  2011 ). This self‐report instrument comprises 36 items, representing eight health‐related quality of life domains (Maruish,  2011 ). The assessment is anchored on either Likert‐type scale response options or yes/no response options. All eight domains (i.e., physical functioning, role physical [role participation with physical health problems], bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, role‐emotional [role participation with emotional health problems], and mental health) are used to calculate the physical and mental health summary scores based on their relative factorial weights (see Maruish,  2011 ). Higher scores indicate better health. All eight health scales had high internal consistency throughout the study (Cronbach's alpha = 0.81–0.93).

Data analyses

Linear mixed‐effect regression modeling (LME) with the lme4 package for R version 3.5.3 was used to investigate the effect of divorce conflict level on the outcomes. A restricted maximum likelihood estimation approach was used to ensure the robustness of the longitudinal estimates and to protect against informative missing patterns (Little,  2013 ) by not imputing, but using all available information and providing with population parameters that would most likely produce the estimates from the sample data analyzed. This method remains consistent under the weaker assumption of missing at random. We constructed several different models that were then compared using likelihood ratio tests, that allowed us to examine which model fits the data best. Model 0 assumed no effect of conflict at all (conflict was not included in the analyses), Model 1 assumed the main effect of conflict (time invariant; i.e., that conflict levels were linearly associated with health outcomes), Model 2 assumed conflict‐level specific trajectories in health across time (i.e., a conflict × time interaction, i.e., that the rate of change in the outcomes varied as a function of conflict levels), and Model 3 assumed intervention group by conflict‐level specific trajectories across time (i.e., group × conflict × time interaction), allowing for a test of whether the previously established effectiveness of the intervention depends on the conflict level. Analyses for Models 0, 1, and 2 controlled for the intervention effects (i.e., removing the effects of the intervention) to assess the role of the conflict levels on the outcomes for all the participants regardless of group placement.

A comparison of Model 0 and Model 1 allowed for a test of whether divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce associated with stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health during the first year post divorce (RQ1). A comparison of Model 1 and Model 2 allowed for a test of whether the trajectories of stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health over a 1‐year period post divorce vary as a function of divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce (RQ2). A comparison between Model 2 and Model 3 allowed for a test of whether the intervention effects of the CAD digital intervention on stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health over the course of 1 year post divorce vary as a function of divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce (RQ3). For all models, we controlled for gender and the number of children. Divorce conflict and the number of children were entered as continuous variables, while time, intervention group, and gender were entered as categorical variables. Divorce conflict level effects were quantified as mean differences at each time point, whereas a random intercept accounted for individual differences in initial outcome levels (no other random effects were specified). The sizes of mean differences are reported with the Cohen's d effect size estimate.

Generally, when divorce conflict was included in the models (Models 1, 2, and 3), the models had a better fit to data as compared with the baseline model (which did not contain conflict); therefore, suggesting a significant contribution of divorce conflict to health outcomes (see Table  2 ). However, which of the subsequent models fit best varied by the outcome.

Results for the likelihood ratio tests comparing the three models tested for Divorce Conflict Scale Scores

Note : Text in bold denotes the most appropriate model according to the likelihood ratio tests (i.e., a significant test comparing Models 1 and 2 indicates that Model 2 has the best fit to data; a significant test comparing Models 2 and 3 indicates that Model 3 has the best fit to data).

• RQ1: Are divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce associated with stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health the first year post judicial divorce?

The likelihood ratio tests suggested that the first‐order model, which assumed a linear association of divorce conflict level with the health outcomes over the first year post judicial divorce, was the most appropriate model for depression and mental and physical health (see Tables  2 and  3 ), such that higher divorce conflict was consistently associated with higher levels of symptoms of depression and poorer mental and physical health the first year post divorce.

Results for the study outcomes using linear mixed effect modeling for Conflict Scale Scores

Note : Model estimates in bold are the most appropriate model according to the likelihood ratio tests.

• RQ 2: Do divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce moderate trajectories of stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health over a 1‐year period post judicial divorce?

The likelihood ratio tests suggest that the second‐order model, which assumed that conflict level moderates trajectories of the outcome variables over the first year post judicial divorce, was the most appropriate model for stress, anxiety, and hostility (see Tables  2  and  3  and Figure  1 ), such that those who reported higher levels of divorce conflict experienced a more pronounced decline in symptoms of stress, anxiety, and hostility over time.

Study outcome trajectories generated by linear mixed‐effect modelling for Conflict Scale Scores. (A) Stress, (B) anxiety, and (C) hostility. The significant interactions were plotted according to Aiken and West ( 1991 ), probing at ±1 SD from the mean (i.e., high and low values for conflict)

• RQ3: Do divorce conflict levels at the time of judicial divorce moderate the intervention effects of the CAD digital intervention on stress, symptoms of anxiety, depression, general hostility, and overall mental and physical health over the course of one year from judicial divorce?

The likelihood ratio tests suggested that the third‐order model, which assumed that conflict level moderates intervention effects of the CAD digital intervention on the outcome variables over the first year post judicial divorce, was not the most appropriate model for any of the health outcomes (see Tables  2 and  3 ). This suggests that participants benefited equally from the CAD program in terms of the mental and physical health variables assessed, regardless of the initial conflict level that they reported at the time of divorce.

The present study aimed to fill gaps in knowledge of the impact of divorce conflict at judicial divorce on health at 1 year following divorce and, more importantly, to test whether the efficacy of a digital divorce intervention is impacted by the conflict level reported at divorce. Using a 1‐year RCT study of a large sample of Danish divorcees, the study found that, as predicted, the higher the initial divorce conflict, the higher the symptoms of depression and the poorer the mental and physical health in the first year following divorce (RQ1). The study also found that conflict level at judicial divorce moderated the time trajectories for stress, anxiety, and hostility (RQ2), such that those with higher initial divorce conflict at judicial divorce experienced a greater reduction in symptoms of stress, anxiety, and hostility during the first year following a divorce. Lastly, the study found no moderating effects of initial levels of divorce conflict on the efficacy of the CAD intervention (RQ3). This suggests that the previous findings of the effectiveness of the CAD intervention platform on stress, depression, anxiety, and mental and physical health (Cipric et al.,  2020 ; Hald, Ciprić, Øverup, et al.,  2020 ; Øverup et al.,  2020 ; Sanders, Hald, et al.,  2020 ; Sanders, Strizzi, et al.,  2020 ) held true, regardless of the severity of divorce conflict at the time of judicial divorce.

Cross‐sectional research has found that higher levels of initial divorce conflict are associated with higher levels of depression and poorer mental and physical health post divorce (Hald, Ciprić, Sander, et al.,  2020 ; Liu & Chen,  2006 ; Liu & Umberson,  2008 ; Sander, Strizzi, et al.,  2020 ; Thuen,  2001 ). Extending this cross‐sectional research, our longitudinal examinations suggested that higher levels of initial divorce conflict predict more pronounced improvements in symptoms of stress, anxiety, and hostility following the divorce. That is, those with higher divorce conflict at judicial divorce experienced greater improvements in stress, anxiety, and hostility following the CAD intervention (RQ2). It should be noted, however, that these findings could be due to the fact that, compared to the participants who reported lower initial divorce conflict, participants who reported higher divorce conflict initially scored higher on all three psychological outcomes, which may have provided them with more “room” within which to improve. That is, the larger reduction in stress, anxiety, and hostility over time for those who reported higher conflict may partly be explained by the regression to the mean effect stemming from their higher initial stress, anxiety, and hostility scores (Linden,  2013 ). However, these larger reductions experienced by those with higher initial conflict scores could also be tentatively explained by the temporal proximity of the stressful stimulus (i.e., the high‐conflict divorce). It could be that divorce/separation lessens the intensity, frequency, and/or duration of the interactions between former spouses, thus making their conflict more distal, which can result in decreasing stress, anxiety, and hostility levels over time (Ingram et al.,  2007 ; Jackson & Finney,  2002 ). This notion is also supported by some research demonstrating that divorce may (also) lead to positive outcomes for some individuals (Ahrons,  1994 ; Kalmijn & Monden,  2006 ; Symoens et al.,  2014 ; Waite et al.,  2009 ; Wheaton,  1990 ). In further support of this contention, Waite and colleagues ( 2009 ) found that among those unhappily married, those who divorced experienced significant improvements in psychological well‐being some years later, compared to those who remained in their unhappy marriages. Nevertheless, the impact of high initial conflict in divorce seems to be more time invariant for depression and mental and physical health (RQ1). Depression and declining mental and physical health have previously been linked to unsuccessful adaptation to stressful stimuli, which in this case could be the divorce and related conflict with the former spouse (Ahola et al.,  2014 ; Gilbert et al.,  2019 ; Ingram et al.,  2007 ; Magnusson Hanson et al.,  2014 ; Shirom & Ezrachi,  2003 ; Tennant,  2002 ).

One of the most interesting study findings is that the efficacy of the CAD digital intervention program did not vary as a function of divorce conflict (RQ3). That is, the program appears to have the potential to facilitate divorcees' resilience in terms of postdivorce adjustment across different levels of divorce conflict. These findings are aligned with the divorce‐stress‐adjustment theory (DSA; Amato,  2000 ), which suggests that by supplementing individual coping ability, one could reduce conflict‐induced mental and physical health concerns, regardless of the conflict levels experienced in divorce (Cohen et al.,  1997 ; Mancini et al.,  2009 ). Therefore, public health intervention in divorce, such as CAD, could provide structural support in supplementing individual coping strategies in dealing with high conflict in divorce.

Moreover, opposing the concern that the digital mode of intervention/help might not be effective or sufficient for high conflict divorces and that a more personal and hands‐on approach is needed, the results indicated that the digital intervention could be equally helpful for high as well as moderate or low conflict divorces in ameliorating the potentially negative health impacts of divorce. This may be of policy relevance, as digital interventions are generally less time and resource costly, and thus, may be associated with reduced public spending. Moreover, they have the ability to reach a larger number of divorcing couples experiencing conflict. These factors may be key to its efficacy across conflict levels. Given its relative ease of access and remote (nonpersonal) mode of engagement, some people may be more likely to complete portions of the intervention, especially if they are reluctant to attend face‐to‐face services (for time, costs, or other factors; Schramm & Becher,  2020 ). Moreover, digital modes have the benefit of creating a natural distance from the target of frustration and conflict (i.e., the former partner). In face‐to‐face settings, former partners may be directly faced with each other and may become defensive (e.g., as they anticipate restatement of blame and escalation of conflict). Such defensiveness may reduce people's ability to constructively engage in the therapeutic session. The distance naturally created by the digital medium may reduce the defensiveness to a point at which people are better able to engage with the therapeutic content and thus, reap the benefits of intervention.

Nevertheless, although intervention effectiveness did not vary as a function of conflict level, it should be noted that those with higher levels of conflict continued to report higher levels of negative health outcomes relative to those with lower levels of conflict. That is, this group of divorcees remain at higher risk of disadvantageous health outcomes. Consequently, it may be that the CAD or similar interventions could be used as a supplement to other services for those experiencing high conflict divorces to further mitigate adverse health effects related to their divorce. For example, in Denmark, many high conflict divorces receive municipal or governmental help to (further) tackle the conflict, in the form of mediation or face‐to‐face counseling with social workers and psychologists. In assessing the preference for e‐mental health interventions, Phillips et al. ( 2021 ) documented a clear preference for blended care that includes face‐to‐face contact with a psychotherapist. Therefore, for these cases, the digital intervention may be used as a basis for the counseling (e.g., as “homework” or “prelearning,” which is then discussed and expanded upon during the in‐person counseling sessions). However, due to the previously listed concerns regarding face‐to‐face counseling, remote counseling has been proposed as a good alternative to traditional in‐person approaches (Simon,  2020 ). The incorporation of a remote counseling feature in the intervention could enable personalization of the therapy for individuals in a psychologically demanding divorce situation. Future research should seek to examine the relative efficacy of the stand‐alone digital intervention relative to stand‐alone face‐to‐face counseling and combined digital intervention and distance counseling for those who experience higher divorce conflict.

Study limitations

Although the current study had significant strengths, including the use of a large RCT sample of newly divorced people undergoing the CAD intervention at judicial divorce, several limitations should be noted. The shortcomings related to the RCT sample have been elaborated in Cipric et al. ( 2020 ), Hald, Ciprić, Øverup, et al. ( 2020 ), Øverup et al. ( 2020 ), Sanders, Hald et al. ( 2020 ), and Sanders, Strizzi et al. ( 2020 ) and include study attrition, which could increase the chances of selection (into the study) and attrition (from the study) biases (Cugelman et al.,  2011 ; Eysenbach,  2005 ). That is, people who elected to participate in the study may have differed from those who did not participate on variables that we are unable to assess (see analyses on the representativeness of the sample in the Materials and Methods section). However, in this regard, it should be noted that previous attrition and sample bias (i.e., logistic regression) analyses of the included study sample have shown only a slight overrepresentation of older and physically healthier individuals, which did not seem to affect the sample's overall representativeness (as suggested by its comparison to the general population; Cipric et al.,  2020 ; Hald, Ciprić, Øverup, et al.,  2020 ; Øverup et al.,  2020 ; Sanders, Hald, et al.,  2020 ; Sanders, Strizzi, et al.,  2020 ).

Another study limitation pertains to the fact that divorce conflict was only measured at the study baseline and not subsequently over the course of the first year post judicial divorce. As a result, it is not clear if changes in divorce conflict levels over time, if any, mediates changes in the health outcomes. The study findings are therefore limited to investigations of divorce conflict at the time of judicial divorce and its possible health‐related effects over the first year post divorce only. Therefore, we encourage more longitudinal studies similar to the current one, but where divorce conflict is measured repeatedly (i.e., at judicial divorce and at regular intervals post divorce), and, moreover, that the longitudinal design may extend beyond 1 year post divorce.

Finally, for the methodological feasibility of collecting populational sample in the collaboration with the DSA, the moment of the legal divorce was considered the time of divorce in this study, although we are aware that the divorce process may precede the judicial formalization of divorce.

Using a large RCT sample of 1856 recently divorced Danish residents, the study explored the longitudinal associations between the initial divorce conflict levels and stress, depression, anxiety, hostility, and general mental and physical well‐being. Moreover, we examined whether the efficacy of the CAD digital divorce intervention varied as a function of initial divorce conflict. The findings suggest that there is a longitudinal association between the initial level of divorce conflict and health trajectories the first year following divorce, but that the efficacy of the CAD intervention on these health outcomes is not influenced by the level of divorce conflict at judicial divorce. Relevant to both health policy strategies and practitioners, the findings suggest that digital divorce interventions may be useful regardless of the initial level of divorce conflict at judicial divorce.

Supporting information

Supporting information.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to thank the Egmont Foundation for support with the development of the digital platform “Cooperation After Divorce” (CAD), the Danish State Administration for help during the data collection process, and the Carlsberg Foundation for their funding of the research project “When Marriage Fails.” This study was supported by financial support from “The Carlsberg Foundation Distinguished Associate Professor Fellowship” (second author) under Grant No. CF16‐0094.

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Divorce Research Paper

This sample divorce research paper features: 9000 words (approx. 30 pages), an outline, and a bibliography with 82 sources. Browse other research paper examples for more inspiration. If you need a thorough research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

Introduction

Public pronouncements and vital social statistics, the social myth surrounding divorce, the marriage and divorce data, conclusion: marriage and divorce in the 21st century.

• Bibliography

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The perpetuity of marriage is enforced by law as a protection for children, for whose education and support society as such makes no other provision than the frequently aborted attempt to compel an efficient guardianship of the parent by penal enactments. (Andrews 1975:12) Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services Get 10% OFF with 24START discount code var form_action="https://www.iresearchnet.com/order/"; var partner_id = 3870; var sub_id = "CAL"; (function() { var sc = document.createElement('script'); sc.type = 'text/javascript'; sc.async = true; sc.src = 'https://www.edu-profit.com/orderformph-new3.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(sc, s); })(); The Romans bemoaned their high divorce rates, which they contrasted with an earlier era of family stability. The European settlers in America began lamenting the decline of the family and the disobedience of women and children almost as soon as they stepped off the boats. (Coontz 2005:1) No trend in American life since World War II has received more attention or caused more concern than the rising rate of divorce. (Cherlin 1992:20) (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

As an often-cited U.S. government report indicates, “Current concerns about the condition of the American family, as well as discussion about ‘family values’ indicate a need for timely information about factors contributing to major shifts in family structure” (Norton and Miller 1992:iii). With the emphasis on marriage, divorce, and remarriage, the government is looking closely at well-known sociological facts pertaining to changes in the family, sex and gender roles, and issues relating to human sexuality. As noted by Cherlin (1992), “Although the family undoubtedly has a future, its present form differs from its past form in important aspects, at least in part because of recent changes in patterns of cohabiting, marrying, divorcing, and remarrying” (p. 2).

Although marriage may be a damaged institution (Cherlin 1992) and a marriage crisis is a global concern (Coontz 2005:2–3), social attitudes do not necessarily reflect a consistent assessment of these occurrences. Early alarmists, such as William F. Ogburn (1927) and Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955), who considered the family as a damaged institution and thus as a subject of sociological inquiry, raised important problems concerning marriage and divorce. In addressing family issues, these sociologists recognized that the economic, protective, recreational, and religious functions of the family had shifted since the 1920s. Consequently, functions like as protection, education, economics, religious instruction, and recreation have been outsourced to other institutions (Newman 1950; Zellner 2001:38–39). Indeed, the economic unit functions of the family were replaced by the factory, the restaurant, and the store, while the protective responsibilities were assumed by the courts, the school, and the health department (Ogburn 1927:7).

William Fielding Ogburn wrote in 1927 that marriage is a significant social institution due to its correlation with happiness. Ogburn may have been the first analyst to discover the significant disparity in the mortality rates of married and unmarried men. He acknowledged that divorce is of particular significance to society because, as he notes (p. 7), divorce typically occurs with the expectation that a new family will be created through remarriage.

In 1632, the Grand Assembly of Virginia mandated that all ministers in the commonwealth record all burials, christenings, and marriages. Since then, the United States has maintained a long tradition of recording key occurrences. In 1639, the Massachusetts Bay Colony established a law mandating that all births, funerals, and marriages be recorded by government officials. Other colonies, including Plymouth Colony in 1646 and the Connecticut Court of Elections in 1644 and 1650, quickly ordered town clerks or registrars to record similar birth, marriage, and death information. In Massachusetts, however, a regular registration system and form were not established until 1842, when the Secretary of the Commonwealth assumed responsibility for collecting such data (Jacobson 1959:7–8).

Vital data such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces were well-recognized declarations of public significance before the mid-1850s, when the collection of vital information became an important part of the official state census gathering. Possibly for this reason alone, the philosophy around marriage and divorce, especially in the United States, has been hampered by social, religious, and political interpretations for a very long time. Further legislation was interrupted by the Civil War, but in 1889, an issue of the Political Science Quarterly lent credence to the fact that issues relating to marriage and divorce were receiving significant exposure. Dike (1889) noted the following:

Twenty years ago President Woolsey’s Divorce and Divorce Legislation contained in a dozen scanty pages about all the existing statistics regarding both this country and Europe. Since then, the collections of their statistics by four or five more states (in a meager way, excepting the excellent work in Massachusetts begun by Mr. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor in 1879 and contained since under provision of statute); [and] the few additions by the National Divorce Reform League. (P. 592) Lobbying for more efficient registration legislation led to important advances at the federal level by the early twentieth century with the creation in 1902 of the Bureau of the Census and, in 1903, a Congressional resolution calling for a cooperative effort between the states and the newly established Bureau to establish a uniform system of birth and death registration for the entire country. At the time, only 15 states and the District of Columbia had established a central filing system; by 1919, all states had legislation that required such registration even if strict enforcement did not occur (Jacobson 1959). Despite these advances in statistical gathering procedures, as late as the mid-twentieth century only three-fourths of the states had a provision for recording marriages and about one-half for divorces (Newman 1950).

In 1877, the first government database on marriage and divorce was formed, and Walter F. Willcox conducted the inaugural examination of the data (1891, 1893, 1897). Since then, there has been a significant deal of public discourse as numerous analysts utilize the vital statistics data to challenge parts of what was to become a complex social matrix including the structure and function of the institution of the family.

In the 1950s, it was hypothesized that divorce was more prevalent among lower socioeconomic levels and that the highly publicized divorces of prominent middle- to upper-class individuals generated an inaccurate impression of the incidence of divorce in the United States (Monahan 1955). In the late 1980s, it was asserted that two-thirds of first marriages would result in divorce (Martin and Bumpass 1989). Following this claim, White (1990), arguing that divorce is a macro-level problem, wrote that “A shift in the lifetime divorce probability from 10% to well over 50% cannot be explained at the micro level” (p. 904).

Such a view of and debate over marriage and divorce issues continues in the contemporary experience, prompted in part by the findings reported and commentary attributed to analysts such as Martin and Bumpass (1989), Riley 1991, and Cherlin (1992). Andrew J. Cherlin wrote (1992:7) that “During the 1980s the divorce rate declined slightly but remained high enough that about half of marriages, at current rates, would end in divorce.” Cherlin (1992) also observed that divorce “rates in the 1980s, although stable, still imply that about half of all the marriages begun in the mid-1970s will end in divorce or separation” (p. 30). Such information is also cited in the most learned of reference publications, as noted by Norton and Miller (1992) and Kurz (2001:3811), for example, who, drawing upon Cherlin (1992), among others, state, “The USA has one of the highest divorce rates—50 percent of all marriages now end in divorce.” Because of the respectable position these analysts hold, other analysts make good use of the information to further perpetuate the myth of a 50 percent divorce rate. For example, Ruggles (1997), in citing Cherlin’s work, stated, “Only about 5% of marriages contracted in 1867 were expected to end in divorce, but over one-half of marriages contracted in 1967 are expected to end in divorce” (p. 455). And of course, publications that champion women’s issues cannot neglect the divorce problem, as noted in Deborah Perry’s discussion on the economy: “with more than half of marriages ending in divorce, many stay-at-home women may not be entitled to the Social Security benefits of their former spouses” (Malveaux and Perry 2003:109).

Due to its seeming veracity, the common perception of a 50 percent divorce rate dominated the later decades of the twentieth century, and the myth continues to persist in the early years of the twenty-first. Despite its legendary quality, the presumed high divorce rate placed the institution of marriage and the event of divorce at the center of a core of societal concerns that confront our sensibilities. Indeed, since the publishing of the first public report of marriage and divorce statistics around one hundred years ago, tales of a more golden past surrounding marriage and the institution of the family have been prevalent (Calhoun 1917, 1919; Coontz 1992, 2000, 2005). However, rigorous analysis of the data demonstrates that the myth of a 50 percent divorce rate is not substantiated by social facts.

A discussion of the incidence and rate of marriage and divorce, as well as the debunking of the myth that the United States has a 50 percent divorce rate, is supported by official government documents. In the following sections, these data are applied to the historical and present marriage and divorce experience in the United States. These official statistics reveal that the prevalent myth of a reduction in the conventional family structure and the continuous exponential expansion of the U.S. divorce rate constitute an unsubstantiated social construct.

Some concerns related to the study of marriage and divorce are discussed in the sections that follow. Newman (1950) noted, however, that these topics cannot be studied in isolation because the study of marriage and divorce is related to vast changes in a complex social order that necessitate an investigation into the cultural, social, political, and economic aspects of the family, as well as changes in the structure and function of the family. If this evaluation was accurate more than fifty years ago, the message may be even more pertinent in the early twenty-first century.

The History of Marriage and Divorce

If civilization is to be founded on family life, then marriage also is essential. The family in its current form emerged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the conjugal family developed concomitant with the soon-tobe-discovered concept “childhood.” At that point in time and over the next two centuries, the primary task of the family was to train and nurture children; family life became increasingly oriented toward children. Thus, the modern family developed the concept “home” with its characteristics to include privacy, isolation, and the domestic life (O’Neill 1967:4–6). The history of the marriage institution and the cross-cultural complexity of divorce became well chronicled in an early-twentieth-century three-volume treatise titled A History of Matrimonial Institutions. Written by George Elliott Howard and published in 1904, this grand, scholarly series addressed the vast accumulated knowledge of marriage and divorce within a global context. Published during a period when many interesting questions were being raised about the family institution (see, e.g., Shively’s ([1853, 1889] 1975) edited work Love, Marriage, and Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual: A Discussion between Henry James, Horace Greeley, and Stephen Pearl Andrews ), a previously unpublished work by Stephen Pearl Andrews (1975, edited by Shively) titled Love Marriage, and the Condition of Women, and the references found in the cross-cultural and regional comparative analyses of Willcox (1893), such resources established the import that subsequent research would offer policymakers of the future.

Walter Willcox’s demographic work was the first influential empirical assessment of marriage and divorce and helped to establish the foundation for future population analyses. But the first scholarly American study of the family appears to have been published in 1887 by Charles F. Thwing ([1913] 1887), a minister and later university president, whose analysis of divorce led to the belief that excessive individualism and modern secularism were the root causes of the divorce problem (as cited in O’Neill 1967:170–71). Thirty years later, Arthur W. Calhoun’s three-volume set Social History of the American Family (1917–1919) was to serve social analysts and policymakers well. In the latter instance, the important sociological inquiry into the family institution helped to establish a university-level curriculum for the developing discipline of sociology.

A more limited but no less important inquiry into the history of American divorce is offered by Blake (1962), whose work builds upon the issue of “migratory divorce” raised by Cavers (1937) a generation earlier. Blake’s questions about the conservative New York State’s position on divorce led him to further explore the issue on a national basis, especially as it led to Nevada’s liberal divorce laws. Willcox (1893:90), on the other hand, recognized long before Nevada’s developing reputation that states like Rhode Island offered more liberal opportunities, including divorce, to the residents of New York State.

The rapid expansion of the American frontier as a result of pioneering, the rise of industrialism and urbanization, and the improvement of living conditions in the northern United States had significant effects on the evolution of the American family. This included a greater emphasis on marriage, early marriage for both men and women, and high birth rates to ensure big families (Calhoun 1918:11–25). The following statement illustrates the cultural necessity of these early Americans. Marriage, according to Lowie (1933), is human mating that receives moral appraisal

according to the norms distinctive of each society. Marriage denotes those unequivocally sanctioned unions which persist beyond sensual satisfaction and thus come to underlie family life. It is therefore not coextensive with sex life, which embraces matings of inferior status in the social scheme of values. (P. 146)

As observed by Coontz (1992, 2000, 2005), a single standard definition of marriage is difficult to create due to the wealth of cross-cultural anthropological study literature (see, for example, Lowie 1933). However, marriage is a sort of cooperation between the sexes designed to ensure the perpetuation and ultimate survival of the species (Hankins 1931).

Despite conceptual difficulties, marriage and divorce are two family-related issues that have been the subject of extensive discussion, analysis, and criticism for over 125 years. Arthur W. Calhoun (1917) stated that the American family institution is the outcome of three evolutionary phases: “the complex of medieval tradition . . . on the basis of ancient civilization . . . ; the economic transition from medieval landlordism to modern capitalism; and the influence of environment in an unfolding continent” (p. 13).

Later, in the third volume of a series on the history of the American family, this author indicated that systematic study of the family began in earnest around the same time as the introduction of early inventions (i.e., the telephone, the incandescent lamp, the trolley car, and the typewriter) into American culture, each of which was to have dramatic effects on communications and transportation (Calhoun 1919:7–10). Similarly, Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955:iii) note that changes in the American family and family living from the early 1800s are influenced by what they describe as three clusters of inventions and discoveries: steam and steel, contraceptives, and the numerous scientific discoveries that have influenced religious beliefs. Almost ninety years after the publication of Calhoun’s family treatise, it is acceptable to assert that the American family institution continues to be influenced by a fluid social context, even though the economic forces that thrive today are vastly different from those of the past.

Official records of marriage behavior collected and maintained by states can be traced back to the act of 1842, when Massachusetts began collecting marriage data, including information on age, sex, and place of birth (Monahan 1951). According to Willcox (1893) and Jacobson (1959), the first state censuses to contain information on marital status were those of Michigan in 1854 and New York in 1855. Twenty years later, numerous additional states began collecting comparable census data. However, the national effort to gather and analyze data did not emerge until many decades later, when Willcox (1891, 1893, 1897) applied newly learning methods to a number of demographic analysts’ areas of interest. Interestingly, Willcox (1893) notes the following: “Only in five states, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Ohio, and in the District of Columbia, can the number of marriages be obtained with approximate completeness for each of the twenty years [1867–1886]” (p. 73).

Divorce has long been of interest to sociologists, and the topic has even been cast in importance alongside other social problems. Witness the effort of one eugenics-oriented author, D. George Fournad (1929), who wrote in the Journal of Educational Sociology,

The unfortunate fact . . . remains that the homes of millions of farmers, miners, laboring men, and especially bootblacks are actually cursed by six or more poorly brought up, if not perfectly neglected children, for no other reason than the lack of eugenics or the need of birth-control information. Small wonder that crime, insanity, suicide, homicide, divorce, and physical or mental degeneration are steadily on the increase. (P. 179)

Other observers, however, are more positive, noting that Puritan settlers in the 1600s introduced divorce to the American colonies, where it has a long and venerable tradition (Howard 1909:767). Howard demonstrates that the divorce process has experienced four centuries of liberalization. Long before the twentieth century, moralists, theologians, and statesmen debated the societal implications of a liberal divorce policy. In essence, then, the institution of divorce in the United States was active and expanding well before late-twentieth-century Americans brought it to its present level (Riley 1991:3).

Some of the earliest sociological observers of divorce and its rise lament the decline of the conventional family while describing its demise. However, the incidence of divorce was not the only cause for concern. Rather, divorce was considered at the turn of the twentieth century as “an evil which gravely threatens the social order, which threatens our most profound thought, our most mature wisdom, and our most persistent courage and endeavor” (Howard 1909:767). This is the same complaint that Riley (1991) claims originated in the late 1800s during the Victorian era, which has been designated by some modern alarmists as the model for family life. However, according to Coontz (2005:2–3), each generation over the past 100 years seems dissatisfied with the current arrangement, believing that the marriage connections of their parents and grandparents were significantly more satisfying.

Despite disparities in attitudes regarding divorce across the northern and southern parts of the United States, religious influences were unable to prevent divorce from being regarded as a social safety valve that insures the continuation of marriage (O’Neill 1967:6–10). From this perspective, divorce is not a sign of a failing family system, but rather a characteristic of Victorian patriarchal and industrial households. However, within the postindustrial/postmodernist family, there are still echoes of worry around the proper roles of the husband and wife and their children.

Some contemporary social critics view a high divorce rate as a threat to the institution of marriage, while condemning the liberal legislation that encourages this conduct as weakening traditional family stability. However, the idea that the demise of the patriarchal family is congruent with the movement toward political democracy that shaped American children and young people over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been overlooked (Calhoun 1918:53). The findings presented in the remainder of the research paper tend to support this assertion. However, such lamentations and the image of an ideal, conventional marriage that is constantly in the past are neither new nor have they become so after the passage of the No-Fault Divorce Act. In fact, it has a considerably longer history. Witness the opinion crafted by Justice Thornton in Martin v. Robson, 1872:

The maxims and authorities and adjudications of the past have faded away. The foundations hitherto deemed so essential for the preservation of the nuptial contract, and the maintenance of the marriage relation, are crumbling. The unity of husband and wife has been severed . . . she no longer clings to and depends upon man. (as cited in Vernier 1935:3)

Moreover, Howard (1904:1–160) documents that during the colonial period, it was established that there would exist a free and tolerant divorce policy, and throughout the century following the founding of the United States, divorce legislation was liberalized even further. And during the mid-nineteenth century, social analysts such as Stephen Pearl Andrews (1975:12–13) recognized that despite the need to provide for and succor children, divorce might be a necessary option to maintaining a relationship between two individuals who never loved one another or who may have ceased to love.

As the legal dissolution of marriage, divorce is a cultural problem-solving technique (Honigmann 1953), and it is a normal remedy for those who are in less-than-fortunate family situations (Blake 1962:iii). John J. Honigmann (1953:38) recognized that divorce is a standardized social response that people employ to change their interpersonal relationships, and, as indicated by Hankin (1931:177), divorce is designed to relieve hardships placed upon and experienced by individuals because of customary marriage rules. And like marriage, divorce also

is a product of social evolution, therefore it is normal and to be accepted . . . inasmuch as certain functions of the parent have passed to the state we must begin to reconcile ourselves to the idea of state care of children to the virtual exclusion of home influence. (Calhoun 1919:10)

According to Calhoun (1919:7–10), the National Divorce Reform League, which began in the early 1880s, and in 1897 became the National League for the Protection of the Family, developed its focus on “existing evils relating to marriage and divorce” (p. 8). Although the extent of the poverty and divorce were unknown at the time, some analysts thought of poverty and divorce as important components of the emerging sociological studies of the family. In Volume III of the three-volume treatise Social History of the American Family, Calhoun documents this emerging relationship through the writings of analysts of the late nineteenth century who were looking into the “divorce question” and the “problems of marriage and divorce.” Many questions were raised, including those relating to polygamy, charity, and children as well as education, economics, politics, and religion—each of these issues and related questions was raised within the context of the lack of information pertaining to the 1880s’American family.

A false idea once implanted is hard to dislodge, and the difficulty of dislodging it is proportional to the ignorance of those holding the idea. (George Cantor’s law of the conservation of ignorance)

The mythology surrounding the American divorce rate is supported by individuals who develop what Sears et al. (1988:98) refer to as the “illusory correlation.” Thus, two factors, the “high divorce rate” and the perceived “breakdown of the family” as a viable social institution, are believed to be highly correlated. Both factors may be contrary to commonly shared set of values, but repeated exposure to such illusory correlation stimuli is consistent with Canter’s law of the conservation of ignorance: Myth eventually assumes the character of a social fact. Within this context, the news media and responsible citizens establish a portion of the public agenda that is based on an inappropriate social reality of the U.S. divorce problem. Dissemination of information in which the work of scholars is either misinterpreted or misrepresented serves to perpetuate social myths (see, for instance, Norton and Miller 1992:1; Kurz 2001).

The lack of public information is also important. In quoting a number of prominent analysts of divorce, Hurley (2005) noted the following:

Part of the uncertainty about the most recent trends (in marriage and divorce) derives from the fact that no detailed annual figures have been available since 1996, when the National Center for Health Statistics stopped collecting detailed data from states on the age, income, education and race of people who divorce. (P. D57)

Perhaps because of the more recent paucity of information, some analysts of the past contributed information that continues to receive notoriety (see, for example, Martin and Bumpass 1989; Cherlin 1992). Despite the fact that Cherlin did not have access to actual data to support his contention, he predicted that approximately one-half of the marriages contracted during the 1970s would end in divorce. Further misunderstanding emerges. In assessing the rise of divorce and separation in the United States during the period from 1880 to 1990, for example, Ruggles (1997), citing Cherlin’s work, stated, “Only about 5% of marriages contracted in 1867 ended in divorce, but over one-half of marriages contracted in 1967 are expected to end in divorce” (p. 455).

William L. O’Neill observes that divorce was rare during the eighteenth century, and, according to Jacobson (1959) and Furstenberg (1990:382), during the 1800s formal divorce was difficult to obtain; thus dissolution of some marriages resulting from desertion were undercounted. But as shown in Table 1, during the next century, marriage and divorce were considered important enough to warrant official documentation, an accounting that began under the stewardship of Carroll D. Wright, then Commissioner of Labor (Dike 1889:592).

The first assessment of the American marriage and divorce question was addressed by Walter F. Willcox (1891, 1893, 1897). Portions of the data shown in the tables reported in this section are from these initial reports. These data beg the question as to why the myth of the 50 percent divorce rate prevails. One possible explanation may lie in the salience of attitude toward divorce reported by Peck (1993). Since the passage of the No-Fault Divorce Act in 1972, divorce, a fairly common event during the final decades of the twentieth century, emerged as a subject of considerable debate with important social policy implications. First, divorce is considered problematic when the union dissolution affects children. This is especially true when the quality of family life in terms of social, economic, and health-related factors for women and children, affected by diminished financial resources, is at risk (Furstenberg 1990). Divorce thus remains a salient issue, especially in terms of the conservative public attitude toward so-called traditional family values.

Evaluation of marriage and divorce in the United States is possible based on data from 1867 to the early twentyfirst century. Included in these data are those published in the first statistical study conducted in the United States and the national vital statistics gathered throughout the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Marriage and divorce data for 1887 to 1906 first became available in 1908, and sociologists quickly acknowledged the information as representing a “great report” (Howard 1909:766). The data shown in Table 1 are from this first effort to offer an overall view of marriage and divorce in the United States. The researchers avoided reporting data in Part 1, actually reported in 1909, due to general underreporting/nonreporting jurisdictions. Indeed, Calhoun’s (1919:199) assessment of these initial numbers indicates that few jurisdictions outside New England did anything more than supply some numbers. But it is noteworthy that the period from 1896 to 1905, according to Calhoun (1919), was “distinctly prone to marriage” (p. 199) and divorce, which Howard (1909:776) argued was frequent in the two most enlightened and democratic nations in the world, namely, the United States and Switzerland.

     Table 1

Clifford Kirkpatrick (1968) argues that divorce is an imperfect index of marital and social disorganization. The reason is straightforward: There can be disorganization in the family without divorce. This is one oft-cited reason why the divorce laws have liberalized in Western societies from the early to mid-twentieth century (Kurz 2001). Moreover, when the modern family became the dominant form during the nineteenth century, divorce became much more common (O’Neill 1967). Then, during the Progressive Era from approximately 1880 to 1919, a more liberal interpretation of marriage and divorce arose among the urban, industrial middle class. Indeed, O’Neill (1967:viii) found that as the Victorian family was to represent the ideal throughout the nineteenth century, divorce was to become the first in a series of adjustments that emerged from the clash between ideas surrounding the patriarchal family and the new sexual ethic arising in turn from the new urban, industrial society.

Despite the suggested inaccuracy of the data and ofttimes inconsistent method in recording and reporting procedures through which these data were gathered, at least some data are available. During the 40-year period from 1867 to 1906, a total of 1,274,341 divorces were reported in the then states, the District of Columbia, and the Indian Territory (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1908). As shown in Table 1, there is a steady increase in the number of divorces from 1867 on and in the number of marriages from 1887 to 1906. One would anticipate such a trend, given the growth of the general population during this same period. Yet this did not seem so logical to those analysts who defined divorce in problematic terms. Note the not-uncommon statement of the early twentieth century attributed to William Fielding Ogburn (1927),

In 1924, there was one divorce granted to about every 7 marriages performed indicates that divorce is very common. Moreover, the chances of a marriage entered in 1924 being broken by divorce may perhaps be nearer to 1 to 5 or 6 than 1 to 7. There were in 1924 about 15 to 16 times as many divorces as there were in 1870, and yet the population is only about 3 times as large. (P. 7)

A similar, albeit misguided, statement is even later attributed to Newman (1950:89), who looked at the numeric increases instead of the rates of marriage and divorce.

In Table 2, the divorce “granted to whom”—husband or wife category—for most of the period from 1887 to 1932 isshown.Althoughnotavailableforallyears,thepercentage column for “granted to wife” represents a statistic that is noteworthy. Without exception, for each year two-thirds or more of divorces granted are to the wife. The first data for calculating ratios noting the number of divorces per 1,000 marriages also are shown. With a few exceptions, notably the years 1913, 1918, 1921, and 1922, the number of divorces increases throughout the period from 1887 to 1929. For the period from 1930 to 1932, however, the data show a moderate downward trend toward fewer divorces. With the exception of 1928 and the period from 1930 to 1932, the same observation can be made for marriages in that the trend in the marriage rate is downward.

     Table 2

Perhaps the most important aspect of these rich data is the fact that they were to serve well the needs of an admiring and ever-growing community of scientists, and these analysts began to raise important theoretical and methodological cause-and-effect questions. Prominent among these early sociologists was George Elliott Howard (1909), whose interest in the complexities of sex, marriage, and the family and especially the role education might play in solving social problems led him to focus on the officially recorded cause of divorce. Other less obvious reasons for establishing the importance of causal factors of what became known as a “divorce movement” included the excessive use of liquor and the platform advocated by the Temperance Movement.

The most frequently cited legal ground, as noted by Hankins (1931) and shown in Tables 3a, b, and c, represents the legally recognized grounds for divorce—namely, adultery, cruelty, desertion, drunkenness, and neglect to provide. Each was common during the period from 1887 to 1891 and for some time thereafter, lending support to the contention by Flexner and Fitzpatrick ([1908] 1996), who, in 1908, wrote, “Women were only granted divorces in instances of ‘adultery, desertion, non-support, and extreme cruelty.’” Other grounds for divorce, although less frequently cited, included bigamy, coercion, conviction of a crime, impotence, insanity, incompatibility, misconduct, fraudulent representation, vagrancy, infection with venereal disease (Hankins 1931). But what is perhaps most interesting is that even though the legal reasons for divorce currently cited may be less offensive by virtue of the descriptor employed, the general reasons for dissolving marriages cited in the past continue in the present.

The numbers and causes of divorces granted to a husband and wife for the five-year periods for 1887 to 1906 (Table 3a) and for 1906 to 1932 (Tables 3b and c) are shown. As noted in Table 2, throughout the period 1887 to 1906 a total of 1,274,341 divorces were granted. Of this total, 428,687 divorces were granted to the husband; to the wife the number is almost double, at 845,652, and serves as testimony that the women’s movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries worked to gain recognition from the courts to allow the initiation of divorce on behalf of women. As one can ascertain from these data, in the United States this right was granted to women in the nineteenth century (Anderson and Wolchik (2001). The causal factors identified within a legal context seem to hold at least up to the mid-twentieth century, for which period Harmsworth and Minnis (1955:316) reported that the legal functional categories, such as extreme cruelty, desertion, adultery, and nonsupport, represent overt manifestations of the factors leading to divorce but these did not necessarily represent the causes of divorce.

      Table 3a

      Table 3b

      Table 3c

Despite such issues, the position assumed by Howard (1904:Vol. 3, pp. 1–160) appears to be supported by the data reported in Tables 3a, b, and c and Tables 4a and b: Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, divorce legislation became more liberalized, reflecting a social need caused by migratory expansion and social changes in attitudes toward the marital bond. Competing definitions of need and justifiable causes also are reflected in the diversity of state legislation, which led to liberal legislation and thereby an increased number of legally acceptable causes for divorce. By 1891, for example, Washington State’s code included 11 causes, of which at least one cause codified a previous more abstract cause.

      Table 4a

      Table 4b

To this point the data raise interesting issues as to whether the traditional family some contemporary critics argue existed in the past did in fact really exist. Based on these five-year-period data, images of the traditional family may have been just that—images but not necessarily a reality of positive marital bliss. Some interesting findings reported in Tables 3a, b, and c include “adultery” and “desertion.” Although the data for divorces granted to the wife based on allegations of adultery and desertion are most extensive, the divorce data for these same categories granted to the husband also are noteworthy. Other categories include cruelty, a combination of causes granted to the wife. Such historical times hardly seem idyllic. Perhaps it can also be suggested that the reasons cited for divorce have not changed since 1887, albeit the contemporary law allows categories such as irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, incompatibility, or irreconcilable differences to serve as the more general reasons for filing for divorce, reasons allowed even if the divorce being sought is not mutually agreeable (Kurz 2001:3811). But other causes include crimes against nature, impotency, conviction of a felony and imprisonment, pregnancy prior to marriage, and unknown factors.

As with the information reported in Tables 3a, b, and c, the data in Tables 4a and b show the proportion of divorce by cause granted to husband and to wife. These data are broken down into proportions for the periods 1887 to 1927 and 1930 to 1932. Again, the “adultery” cause for divorce granted to husband is noteworthy as is the steady decreasing trend for this specific category. Of course the opposite effect for the “adultery” cause is noted for the “granted to wife” category. Focusing on the “desertion” cause category, the percentages are markedly consistent information pertaining to the sexual behavior of the throughout the entire periods from 1887 to 1927 and from 1930 to 1932 for both the husband and the wife.

Finally, the incompleteness of the data for the early 1930s is attributed to the fact that Congress mandated that the Marriage and Divorce study in progress since the early part of the century cease after publication of the 1932 study phase. By 1959, analysts such as Jacobson (1959) emphatically stated that marriage and divorce statistics represent the least developed branch of American vital statistics even though national data on divorce were available for many years before such information was available for births and deaths (p. 9).

Table 5 shows the 1921 to 1989 three-year average data for marriage and divorce. The three-year average rates increase from 1921 to 1923 up to the 1978 to 1980 period, and then a modest decline throughout the decade of the 1980s is documented. More important perhaps is that these data are from the oft-cited U.S. government report referred to above. It is important to recognize the historical rise and fall in the rate of first marriages. When placed within an historical context to include the relative prosperity of the 1920s, the Depression years, World War II, the tranquil years of the 1950s, and then the more activist years of the 1960s and 1970s, these data provide interesting American people.

      Table 5

Frank F. Furstenberg Jr. (1990) suggests that “Americans have always had a higher propensity to divorce than do Europeans and people of North Atlantic Countries,” a contention that receives empirical support from sources such as the Statistical Office of the European Communities report covering the 1960 to 1988 period. Although the United States is shown to have the highest divorces per 1,000 married women, the same reports indicate that the United States also had the highest marriages per 1,000 persons for this period.

The incidence, rate, and ratio of marriages reported for the United Status during the period from 1887 to 2004 are reported in Table 6. Although the data on the number of marriages are incomplete for the entire period, they are both interesting and suggestive. Ranging from a low of 7.9 for the year 1932 (the heart of the Depression period) and then 7.6 for 2003 and 2004 to a high of 16.4 in 1946 (the end of World War II), the marriage rate had been declining or at a steady state since the peak period from 1980 to 1982. The rates recorded for 2002 through 2004 are the lowest since 1932, at which time the 7.9 rate was the lowest ever recorded for the United States. Trendwise, the highest marriage rate for the entire 118-year period was during 1940 to 1950 or just prior to and immediately after World War II.

      Table 6

Finally, the ratios are important as well. Because of their refinement (but missing for the final decade of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century), the ratios that are reported in this table may be more representative of the state of marriage.

Calvin L. Beale (1950) recognized the important role separation held as a factor in divorce, especially from the year 1940 onward, a period that includes the years prior to, during, and in the aftermath of World War II. Aside from couple separation as a major factor, as shown in Table 6, an upward trend in the divorce rate can be observed for the period from 1961 to 1981. Since 1981, however, the divorce rate declined, ranging between 5.2 and 4.0. The persistent myth of an increasing U.S. divorce problem may be attributed in part to a focus on the number of marriages and divorces recorded annually, rather than the divorce rate.

In Table 7, the rate of divorce and annulments for the United States during 1887 to 2004 are presented. Most noteworthy is the declining divorce rate since the year 1981, at which time a high of 5.3 per 1,000 population was recorded. The estimates for the years 2003 and 2004, 3.7 and 3.8, respectively, are the lowest since 1972, one year prior to the passage of the California No-Fault Divorce Act legislation.

      Table 7

Use of the ratio for the years from 1920 to 1996 offers a more balanced representation of divorce in the United States. The highest divorce ratio recorded officially is for the year 1979 (22.8). Early ratios offered by the federal government were the number of divorces divided by marriages for a given year; such data are not useful and tend to offer some modest if ill-informed support to the mythical oft-cited 50 percent divorce rate. The empirical facts differ from the myth. Indeed, the data show that after peaking to a high in 1979 (5.3 and 22.8, respectively), the U.S. divorce rate has decreased beginning in 1982 (5.0 and 21.7).

The reaction to divorce data represents an emotional response to social change, and this reaction may be especially noteworthy when the effect of divorce influences the delivery of social services. One example is the national concern that a large number of children from single-parent families are denied the requisite financial support to allow them the opportunity to prepare for the future. This concern has generated policies to make parents, especially males, more financially accountable for the well-being of their children (Anderson and Wolchik 2001). But the traditional view that men were responsible for women throughout their entire life changed with the passage of the no-fault divorce legislation. Women are now expected to provide their own support through employment to be supplemented by child support and an equal distribution of property (Kurz 2001:3811).

Second, as noted by Sears et al. (1988:134–135), the social milieu affects salience. More than a generation of conservative thinking and a changed economy affect social values. The divorce and marriage rates also may be affected by the economic conditions of the late 1980s and early 1990s that prompted people to consider the financial effects of divorce. The reasons for this kind of decision, such as “for the sake of the children,” “the cost of making two housing payments,” and “to keep intact an estate,” are similar to those reported after research carried out by Cuber and Harroff (1966) in a classic study of the attitudes held by upper-middle-class Americans toward maintaining an unhappy marriage. Another salient factor is the emotional desire to bond to one individual and the strong public attitude toward AIDS. Such external constraints, according to Sears et al. (1988:136), are likely to be salient factors that continue to target divorce as a social issue of import. In addition, the experience of growing up in a single-parent home, according to Dickinson and Leming (1990), is the cause of people viewing marriage differently compared with the past.

However, any discussion of the nature and origin of civil laws in debates over divorce remain relatively unexplored. If introduced into such discussions, evaluation of divorce law usually is confined to family law or the no-fault divorce statutes of the 1970s, especially the California Act of 1973. Thus, the argument as to whether the no-fault divorce laws are the cause or an effect of the U.S. divorce rate continues unabated. What is known is that the statutes currently referred to as “no-fault divorce” eliminate the requirement of providing proof in a court of law, as was required under common law, that one of the marital partners had engaged in adultery or some other act unacceptable to the marital relationship. No-fault divorce statutes eliminate the need to enumerate anything derogative as a sufficient ground for divorce. In other words, the no-fault divorce legislation eliminates the requirement to provide potentially damaging evidence by providing for the dissolution of a marriage based on the finding that the relationship is no longer compatible or viable (www.law.cornell.edu—retrieved January 23, 2003). Other acceptable reasons that lie outside the incriminating criteria used under the common law now include irreconcilable differences and incompatibility.

In the sixteenth century, reformists viewed divorce as the medicine for the disease of marriage, while in 1919 Calhoun observed that the American people demonstrate a remarkable inclination toward marriage, a statement that was supported by the census of 1890 and the census Special Reports Marriage and Divorce 1867–1906 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1908, 1909). In 1933, Robert H. Lowie wrote, “It may be safely predicted . . . that the future of marriage will be shaped not merely by utilitarianism but largely on the basis of pregnant ideologies (p. 154). And in 1931, Hankin observed, “Divorce, a symptom of the liberalizing tendencies of modern culture, seems likely to increase as long as underlying conditions continue their present trends” (p. 184). Such statements hold a general appeal—the ideas are not spatially bound or time bound—so that it may be safe to predict that a similar statement offers to forecast the initial decades of the twenty-first century. Witness the early returns. During the first three years of this century, the marriage rate averaged 8.1 per 1,000 population, while the yearly divorce rate averaged 4.0 per 1,000 population. These figures also characterize the final two decades of the twentieth century in that the marriage and divorce rates were lower than in previous years and both these rates declined throughout the final years of the past millennium. Indeed, the rate of divorce in the United States is at its lowest level since 1971, and this downward trend will probably continue or at least remain steady if only because of yet another trend observed by Norton and Miller (1992). These analysts documented the decline in the percentage of ever-married males and females between 1975 and 1990, thereby providing the evidence essential to understanding more recent marriage and divorce patterns in the United States.

Although some modest efforts to counter the myth of the 50 percent divorce rate do occur (see Hurley 2005), this misconception continues because it is reinforced by the news media, clerics, government officials, and even portions of the academic community. The data simply do not support this public misperception. A doubling of the divorce rate was a trend that occurred between 1940 and 1972. The divorce rate increased to 5.3 per 1,000 by 1981, and the decline in the annual rate has occurred since that time, representing an important trend that suggests a return to what may be identified as the normalcy divorce rate. Still, resistance to this fact and the perpetuation of the myth that a 50 percent divorce rate is undermining the family institution will probably continue because of other unrelated salient social issues. As Carter’s law of the conservation of ignorance suggests, a false idea, once implanted, is difficult to dislodge from the human psyche.

Changing social mores throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and changes in the divorce laws removed the legal constrictions and social taboos pertaining to divorce, in turn providing important new perspectives on divorce (Cherlin 1992). Thus, any explanation of marriage and divorce that is inclusive of an historical perspective is to be valued. Within this context, the historical data and a sociohistorical assessment of these data serve to address two sociological issues: (1) Was historical family life as good as some analysts would have us believe? and (2) Is the present family bond as bad as the common wisdom suggests? In focusing on the marriage and divorce topic in this manner, insights that are essential to challenging a longstanding myth pertaining to the solidarity of the traditional family and the most misleading social myth pertaining to the 50 percent divorce rate can be explored.

The importance of economic factors and marital stability was not recognized until the 1940s (Goode 1951), when employment status, occupation, deviant behavior, and public assistance variables were first taken into consideration. Given the important changes in the role of women during the past one-half century, and the call among some reformers to again relegate women to the domestic role, findings such as those reported by Schoen et al. (2002) serve to enhance our current views of marriage and divorce. Past perceptions that dual careers pose a threat to the family and that a persistently high divorce rate will eventually undermine the very foundations of the family institution do not hold up to long-term scrutiny, and it is this kind of analysis of marriage and divorce that must be undertaken within the context of historical change (Scott 2001). Note, for example, that the wife’s employment status, according to Schoen et al. (2002), may be influenced by their labor force participation to end an unhappy marriage, but the wife’s employment status does not appear to affect happy couples. As these analysts note, “There is an interaction involving wife’s employment and marital happiness with marital disruption . . . [but] wife’s employment is not associated with increased risk of disruption when both partners are happy in their marriage” (p. 569).

Thus, it can be suggested that if the cyclical prediction offered by William Strauss and Neil Howe in The Fourth Turning (1997) has merit, then we can anticipate a continued movement toward an American bonding experience throughout the early decades of the twenty-first century, including interpersonal relationships that emphasize the importance of the family. Thus, the marriage rate should remain stable or increase while the divorce rate will also remain stable or decline. If the past does indeed provide a lesson, this fourth turning crisis may thus reunite society by providing the requisite common purpose to reenergize and regenerate society. One possible result is that families are again strengthened, major public order questions are resolved, and a new order is established (Strauss and Howe 1997:256).

The assessment of the contemporary family system in general and of divorce in particular can emerge from a minority point of view to become a part of the new perspective of what the family represents and how this emerging definition fits into the social structure. As noted by O’Neill (1967), and consistent with the historical context emphasis advocated by Cherlin (1992), the period from 1880 to about 1919 was and continues to be important for understanding why the American rate of divorce increased and for identifying the change in the public attitude toward divorce. Thus, it would be erroneous to argue that divorce was, currently is, and will in the future serve as a sign of decadence that is corrupting the family institution.

Thus, as the American society strives to enter into a new cycle or era in which everything seems to be as it should be, Furstenberg’s (1990:381) view that the rate of divorce during the 1980s reflects the state of role conflict and ambiguity within the marriage system can be used to explain the marriage system of the past 25 years. Referring to what he identifies as a voluntaristic form of marriage in the United States, Furstenberg argues that divorce has become an intrinsic part of the family system. Although it may take up to several decades of the twenty-first century to resolve most if not all of the issues that constitute the current “cultural wars,” the outcome of these wars will determine the overall status of the cohesiveness and social bonding elements of the American society, of which the family system remains the most important. In the past, the most important social issues were related to fairness and justice for women; at the end of the twentieth century (Galston 1996) and as we move well into the twenty-first century, the public and moral issues seem to be related to our commitment toward children, which, as noted by Calhoun (1919), also was the case at the end of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the themes Stephanie Coontz has established are most appropriate for the twenty-first century when exploring family issues involving “the way we never where” and “the way we really are” in books with these titles. Certainly, the move toward legal sanctions for civil marriages among gay and lesbian couples and the questions and problems attendant on such unions or pairings really do not differ significantly from those that we are accustomed to.

Although sociologists have long employed divorce data (see, e.g., Ogburn and Nimkoff 1955) and permanent separation data (Beale 1950) as indicators of instability, the limitations of such census data are severe, as Ruggles (1997) noted. Despite the call by then Chief Statistician of the Marriage and Divorce Analysis Branch of the National Office of Vital Statistics Samuel C. Newman (1950) for better vital statistics, and the declaration by White (1990) that bigger and better data sets were available during the 1980s, currently less information is available on marriage and divorce. In turn, we have less rather than more insights into the complex issues surrounding marriage and divorce (Ruggles 1997). But data-gathering problems and methodological issues certainly are not new, and such problems continue. During the 1800s, formal divorce was difficult to obtain, and, for this reason, dissolution of some marriages resulting from desertion were undercounted (Furstenberg 1990:382). Even so, the published historical data were more comprehensive than those available during the final decades of the twentieth century.

Changes in recording practices occurred during the last two-thirds of the twentieth century, and in 1996, the collection of detailed marriage and divorce data was suspended by the federal government because of limitations in the information collected by and from certain states as well as budgetary considerations. Although the total numbers and rates of marriages and divorces at the national and state levels are available in the National Vital Statistics Reports, the paucity of data available for public and scholarly consumption will undoubtedly continue well into the twentyfirst century. Moreover, the total picture will remain less well defined than in the past because of an increasing number and rate of informal marriages formed by cohabitation that will go unrecorded.

Bibliography:

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• Blake, Nelson Manfred. 1962. The Road to Reno: A History of Divorce in the United States. New York: MacMillan.
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• Coontz, Stephanie. 2000. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap 2d ed. New York: Basic Books.
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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 113 great research paper topics.

General Education

One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

• Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
• Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
• How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
• How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
• How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
• How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

• What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
• How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
• How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
• Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
• What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
• What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
• How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
• How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
• How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
• What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
• What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
• What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
• Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies  (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
• Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
• Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
• Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
• Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
• Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
• How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
• Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
• What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
• How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
• What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
• Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
• Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
• Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
• How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
• Should graduate students be able to form unions?

• What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
• How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
• Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
• Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
• How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
• How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
• Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
• Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
• Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
• Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
• Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
• Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
• Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
• Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
• Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
• How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
• How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
• What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
• What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
• Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
• What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
• What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
• Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
• Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
• How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
• Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
• What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
• How does stress affect the body?
• Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
• What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
• Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
• How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
• What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
• What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
• Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
• What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
• What were the causes of the Civil War?
• How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
• Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
• What caused Hitler's rise to power?
• Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
• What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
• How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
• What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

• Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
• Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
• How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
• How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
• What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
• What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
• How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

• How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
• How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
• Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
• Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
• How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
• How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
• What are the pros and cons of fracking?
• What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
• What have NASA's biggest successes and failures been?
• How can we improve access to clean water around the world?
• Does ecotourism actually have a positive impact on the environment?
• Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
• What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
• What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
• How are black holes created?
• Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
• How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
• Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
• How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
• Has social media made people more or less connected?
• What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
• Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
• What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
• How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
• When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
• Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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How to Show Up for a Friend Getting Divorced

The end of a marriage can be incredibly isolating. But small gestures from loved ones can provide some relief.

By Jancee Dunn

When my sister Dinah’s marriage ended after 25 years, one of her friends set up twice weekly “vent walks,” where my sister could say anything she wanted about her divorce — with no fear she was being a burden.

“After a while, you feel self-conscious talking about it,” Dinah told me, “like people want you to move on.”

About a third of American adults who marry end up getting a divorce . But for such a common experience, divorce can feel incredibly isolating, said Jeffrey Gardere, a clinical psychologist in Manhattan.

“It completely changes your life direction,” said Dr. Gardere, who is divorced himself. “You feel rudderless.”

A thoughtful, specific gesture like a “vent walk” can be a gift, he said. So I asked experts for other ideas to help a loved one who is going through a divorce.

Make plans during the toughest part of your friend’s week.

For those who are newly divorced, some parts of the week can be especially painful, said Claudia Glaser-Mussen, a psychotherapist in New York City.

Ask your friend if there are specific days or times that feel harder than others, Glaser-Mussen said. Maybe it’s Friday night at cocktail hour, when your friend used to have drinks with their spouse. Then plan activities for those rough patches, she said.

Rachel Sussman, a psychotherapist and the author of “The Breakup Bible,” said that her divorced clients are often nostalgic for small domestic routines they used to have with their spouses. So ask your friend what they miss that you can do together, whether it’s gardening or grocery shopping, she said.

Invite your friend — to everything.

Keep including your friend in your plans, Dr. Sussman said. Don’t assume they will feel like a third wheel if you have a partner. “Bring them with you to movies, dinners, plays — anything,” she said.

Or you can ask your friend to come to a family dinner, Dr. Sussman suggested. “Just offer, and keep offering,” she said. “You’re creating community and structure for them.”

In the throes of her divorce, Dinah asked me to invite her to everything because it shook up her schedule and encouraged her to spend time outside of her too-quiet house. So I barraged her with offers, including a blood drive (“will there be cookies?” she asked) and a cat-adoption fair (“will there be kittens?”).

Don’t trash your friend’s ex.

It can be tempting to tear down your friend’s ex, Dr. Gardere said, but not only does that prevent them from moving forward and healing, but “it can make them feel even more terrible about the person they chose.”

So try to keep it positive, Dr. Gardere said. “Your friend doesn’t need to hear how bad that person was for them,” he added. “They need warmth and a hug and a good meal.”

Offer to help announce the split.

Clients who are splitting up “often feel embarrassed and feel like they failed,” Dr. Sussman said. My sister said she had felt that way, too, “though we had a good run.” So when it came time to tell people about her divorce, a friend helped her share the news in a private Facebook group.

This spared her the responsibility of having to tell everyone individually and answered some basic questions upfront. So ask your friend if they need help getting the word out, Dr. Gardere said, and what they’d like to be conveyed.

Help your friend “rediscover” themself.

Lydia Emery, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Chicago who studies relationships and identity, recommended asking your friend: “Were there any aspects of yourself that you couldn’t express in your relationship?”

Maybe your friend loved to try new foods, but their spouse was a picky eater, Dr. Emery said. Encourage your friend to rediscover some earlier interests, she said; you can even offer to scout out new restaurants together.

My sister always loved seeing live music before her marriage. Friends encouraged her to do it again, and she recently attended a music festival for the first time in decades.

“I was probably the oldest person there,” she told me. “And I had a blast.”

Virginia Sole-Smith wants people to be ‘less afraid of being fat.’

Virginia Sole-Smith, the author of “Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture,” has become one of the country’s most visible fat activists — inspiring her followers and infuriating her detractors. Lisa Miller visited Sole-Smith at her home for an in-depth interview.

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Jancee Dunn , who writes the weekly Well newsletter for The Times, has covered health and science for more than 20 years. More about Jancee Dunn

When a Marriage Comes to an End

Divorce is often hard. but there are still ways to ease the transition and learn to embrace your changing reality..

The end of a relationship can be an opportunity to  reclaim control over your life.

From grand gestures to small acts of kindness , experts say that there are many ways  to help those slammed by the shock and pain of a separation.

Can a divorce be affordable? There are ways to reduce the expense of ending a marriage , but they require both parties to want to end the relationship civilly.

When parents go their separate ways, children can have a tough time adjusting. These tips can help them with the transition .

Women who have gone through a divorce often see their savings and retirement depleted. Building back means careful planning .

Sharing a home after a split? Some divorced couples living together  for the good of their kids and finances  are finding it to be the way to a true partnership .