Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

If her friend gets a divorce, your wife is 75% more likely to divorce[Pew research]

"McDermott and her colleagues found that study participants were 75% more likely to become divorced if a friend is divorced and 33% more likely to end their marriage if a friend of a friend is divorced.

Sociologists call the phenomenon “social contagion”—the spread of information, attitudes and behaviors through friends, families and other social networks.

Examples of social contagion run the gamut from adolescent sexual behavior to the spread of phantom diseases in a workplace. Economist Ilyana Kuziemko reported in a 2006 paper titled “Is Having Babies Contagious?” that brothers and sisters are significantly more likely to have a child soon after a sibling gives birth."

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/21/is-divorce-contagious/

Reply 1

Smash Bandicoot

mmm comes across as a bait anti-feminist thread, that being said divorce raaaa fu

Reply 2

redeleven

Original post by Smash Bandicoot

mmm comes across as a bait anti-feminist thread, that being said divorce raaaa fu

I am firmly anti feminist.

Reply 3

TenOfThem

Original post by redeleven

I am firmly anti feminist.

Is that the reason for your rather odd title

Reply 4

caravaggio2

Original post by Smash Bandicoot

mmm comes across as a bait anti-feminist thread, that being said divorce raaaa fu

What is?
The data or the fact that he is talking about it?

Reply 5

Smash Bandicoot

Original post by caravaggio2

What is?
The data or the fact that he is talking about it?

Data+OP's thread history

Reply 6

German123

Original post by Smash Bandicoot

Data+OP's thread history

Interesting...

Reply 7

masterridley

This is a case of "lies, damned lies and statistics". The title gives the impression that the change in likelihood of divorce is HUGE, but in reality it's only a rise from 9% to 16% per the article.

Also, it's worth noting that the demographics of the study were those of middle or upper class white people, whose divorce rate was/is the lowest amongst the general populace. That means that a lot of these marriages may have been deeply unhappy (eg 1950s are notorious for this), so of course a man/woman who would learn from their friend that life continues after a divorce would think that maybe they don't have to put up with their husband's possible abuses. Again note the use of "wife" in the title, another misinterpretation!

Overall, pretty interesting study. But nothing that I didn't know or suspect. Divorce is always preferable to a deeply unhappy marriage fraught with emotional or physical abuse.