It’s well-established that, with some exceptions, married people live longer and healthier lives than unmarried people.
But until recently, researchers hadn’t conducted a thorough examination of how well a marriage survives when one partner becomes seriously ill.
The results of that effort probably won’t cheer anyone. When a wife falls ill, there is a 6 percent greater chance that a later-life marriage will end in divorce than there is if she remains healthy.
When a husband becomes sick, there is no impact on the odds that the couple will divorce.
The data don’t say which partner initiated the breakup, and the study of 2,701 marriages of people 51 and older did not ask them why they split.
The new research “is not a comment on either gender’s character,” said Amelia Karraker, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University and the lead author of the paper. She acknowledged, however, that “the findings are, on their face, discouraging.”
The study is in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
