New Study Tracks Physical Illness as a Risk Factor for Marital Dissolution in Later Life
Researchers Amelia Karraker, Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Iowa State University and Kenzie Latham, Department of Sociology at Indiana University and Purdue University, recently published “In Sickness and in Health? Physical Illness as a Risk Factor for Marital Dissolution in Later Life” in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. From the abstract:
“The health consequences of marital dissolution are well known, but little work has examined the impact of health on the risk of marital dissolution. In this study we use a sample of 2,701 marriages from the Health and Retirement Study (1992–2010) to examine the role of serious physical illness onset (i.e., cancer, heart problems, lung disease, and/or stroke) in subsequent marital dissolution due to either divorce or widowhood. We use a series of discrete-time event history models with competing risks to estimate the impact of husband’s and wife’s physical illness onset on risk of divorce and widowhood.
We find that only wife’s illness onset is associated with elevated risk of divorce, while either husband’s or wife’s illness onset is associated with elevated risk of widowhood. These findings suggest the importance of health as a determinant of marital dissolution in later life via both biological and gendered social pathways.”
The highlighted finding is generating lots of coverage in the popular press. Thanks to Naomi Cahn, who is also a co-author of the similarly relevant book, Marriage Markets: How Inequality is Remaking the American Family, for sharing the study link.