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Publication #FAR4006

 

Does Divorce Make People Happy?1

Donna Davis2

Figure 1. 
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The marriage and divorce trends of the "modern" American family have been studied for decades. In an attempt to further understand the outcomes of divorce, a team of family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite studied whether unhappily married adults who divorced were any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married.

Early research on divorce concluded that, "A husband and wife would both consent to a divorce if, and only if, they both expected to be better off divorced" (Becker, 1981). But were they? Using data from the National Survey of Family and Households, what the researchers found was that, on average, unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than their counterparts who remained married (Waite et al., 2002).

They reported that divorce "did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or increase a sense of mastery" (Waite et al., ¶ 4, 2002). The authors of the study explained that while eliminating some stresses found in the unhappy marriage, divorce created a new set of stressors that could deeply affect emotional well-being, such as child custody and changes in financial stability (Waite et al., 2002).

While the authors couldn't conclude whether unhappy spouses who divorced would have become happy if they'd remained in their marriage, they did find that two-thirds of unhappy marriages had become happier five years later. They attributed a strong desire to stay married, a commitment to solving problems and a commitment to find personal happiness despite a mediocre marriage were strong predictors of "happy" marriages (Waite et al., 2002).

Listening, learning, and living together: it's the science of life. "Family Album" is a co-production of University of Florida IFAS Extension, the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, and of WUFT-FM. If you'd like to learn more, please visit our website at http://www.familyalbumradio.org.

To listen to the radio broadcast:

http://www.radiosource.net/radio_stories/349.mp3

http://www.radiosource.net/radio_stories/349.wav

References

Becker, G. S. (1981). A Treatise on the Family (enl. ed). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Schoen, R., Astone, N. M., Rothert, K., Standish, N. J., & Kim, Y. J. (2002). Women's employment, marital happiness, and divorce. Social Forces, 81(2), 643-662.

Waite, J. L., Browning, D., Doherty, W. J., Gallagher, M., Luo, Y., & Stanley, S. M. (2002). Does divorce make people happy? Findings from a study of unhappy marriages. Executive summary. Retrieved December 5, 2005, from http://americanvalues.org/html/r-unhappy_ii.html.

Footnotes

1.

This document is FAR4006, one of a series of the Family Youth and Community Sciences Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Broadcast as program 349 in January 2007. Published on EDIS September 2012. In the interest of time and/or clarity, the broadcast version of this script may have been modified. Visit the EDIS website at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu.

2.

Donna Davis, senior producer, Family Album Radio, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension service.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. & M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Nick T. Place, Dean.