The impact of a breast cancer diagnosis on marital outcomes and factors associated with divorce and separation.

Objective: To analyze marital outcomes, divorce or separation, and its association with demographic, socioeconomic, and clinicopathological factors among breast cancer (BC) survivors after 2-years of diagnosis. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of marital status at baseline and at years 1 and 2 of follow-up of women aged ≥ 18 years diagnosed with invasive BC participating in the AMAZONA III (GBECAM0115) study. The BC diagnosis occurred between January 2016 and March 2018 at 23 institutions in Brazil. Results: Of the 2974 women enrolled in AMAZONA III, 599 were married or living under common law at baseline. Divorce or separation occurred in 35 (5.8%) patients at 2 years of follow-up. In the multivariate analysis, public health insurance coverage was associated with a higher risk of marital status change (8.25% vs. 2.79%, RR 3.09, 95% CI 1.39 - 7.03, p = 0.007). Women who underwent mastectomy, adenomastectomy or skin-sparing mastectomy were associated with a higher risk of divorce or separation (8.1% vs. 4.49%, RR 1.97, 95 CI 1.04 - 3.72, p = 0.0366) than those who underwent breast-conserving surgery. Conclusion: Women covered by the public health system and those who underwent mastectomy, adenomastectomy or skin-sparing mastectomy were associated with a higher risk of divorce or separation. This evidence further supports the idea that long-term marital stability is associated with a complex interplay between socioeconomic conditions and stressors, such as BC diagnosis and treatment. ClinicalTrials Registration: NCT02663973.

Updating prospective marriage and divorce data on Norwegian cohorts of two-sex marriages from 1886 until 2018 with same-sex marriages from 1993 until 2018.

This paper presents an update to the previously published dataset known as prospective marriage and divorce data on Norwegian cohorts of two-sex marriages from 1886 until 2018. This update adds prospective data from all same-sex marriages formed in Norway between 1993 and 2018, with annual follow-up for 25 years, totaling 26 cohorts and 5,187 marriages. The data list the number of marriages that ended in divorce throughout each year of follow-up. The data contain information about the age of both spouses, the number of divorces from each cohort in the total population of marriages, as well as divorces among marriages formed in urban and rural areas of the country. Marriages formed within a calendar year are pooled into cohorts, and each pair is examined annually to ensure that the same two people remain married. As a result, the method is equivalent to the initial dataset on two-sex marriages presented in the first dataset.

Being alone after late-life divorce: freedom and loneliness from an intergenerational familial/dyadic perspective.

OBJECTIVES: To examine in-depth experiences of loneliness and freedom after late-life divorce from an intergenerational familial/dyadic perspective in a family-oriented society that also values self-determination. Considering the expansion of late-life divorce, it is important to understand its consequences for the family wellbeing. METHOD: According to phenomenology tradition, data was collected through 51 semi-structured qualitative interviews, comprised from 7 family units (n = 33) including all/most family members and 9 parent-child dyads (n = 18), using thematic-analysis and dyadic interview-analysis principles. Analyzing family units enables a more complex examination of the phenomena, providing a holistic view of family life. RESULTS: Loneliness and freedom experienced simultaneously was the most common. A gap was identified between generations regarding benefits and costs of late-life divorce. Whereas most divorcees emphasized the benefits of freedom, most of their adult-children mainly described the disadvantages of loneliness, perceiving both loneliness and freedom as negative. CONCLUSION: Late-life divorce is a complex experience comprised of both loneliness and freedom. Each generation experiences the benefits and costs of late-life divorce differently. Unique aspects of freedom and loneliness at old age in a socio-cultural context located between self-determination and family-oriented are discussed, including strategies of coping with loneliness. Implications for families and professionals are presented.

Testing the Impacts of Rational-Emotive Couple Intervention in a Sample of Parents Seeking Divorce.

Marital burnout has not been extensively studied despite its huge consequences on family wellbeing and quality of family life. This study, using randomised-controlled trial, tested the impact of rational-emotive couple intervention on marital burnout in a sample of parents seeking a divorce. A total of 67 parents who participated during the rational-emotive couple intervention (RECI) were assessed using the marital burnout scale, Beck depression inventory, and parent rational and irrational beliefs scale. Crosstabulation, multivariate test analysis, and bivariate analysis were used to analyse the data collected. Results show a significant reduction of marital burnout in RECI group participants, and significant improvement was maintained at the follow-up stage. The result of the group and gender interaction effect shows no significant interaction effect of group and gender on participants' marital burnout at Time two and Time 3, respectively. The results indicate that a decrease in parents' irrational beliefs accounts for marital burnout among couples seeking a divorce. Marital burnout is positively associated with depression among couples seeking a divorce. This study concludes that the RECI is an effective intervention that reduces marital burnout which is a direct consequence of irrational beliefs which later metamorphose into depressive symptoms.

Family Structure, Family Transitions, and Child Overweight and Obesity: Comparing Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Growing rates of childhood obesity globally create concern for individuals' health outcomes and demands on health systems. While many policy approaches focus on macro-level interventions, we examine how the type of stability of a family structure might provide opportunities for policy interventions at the micro level. We examine the association between family structure trajectories and childhood overweight and obesity across three Anglophone countries using an expanded set of eight family structure categories that capture biological relationships and instability, along with potential explanatory variables that might vary across family trajectories and provide opportunities for intervention, including access to resources, family stressors, family structure selectivity factors, and obesogenic correlates. We use three datasets that are representative of children born around the year 2000 and aged 11 years old in Australia (n = 3329), the United Kingdom (n = 11,542), and the United States (n = 8837) and nested multivariate multinomial logistic regression models. Our analyses find stronger relationships between child overweight and obesity and family structure trajectories than between child obesity and obesogenic factors. Children in all three countries are sensitive to living with cohabiting parents, although in Australia, this is limited to children whose parents have been cohabiting since before their birth. In the UK and US, parents starting their cohabitation after the child's birth are more likely to have children who experience obesity. Despite a few differences across cross-cultural contexts, most of the relationship between family structures and child overweight or obesity is connected to differences in families' access to resources and by the types of parents who enter into these family structures. These findings suggest policy interventions at the family level that focus on potential parents' education and career prospects and on income support rather than interventions like marriage incentives.

Life Events and Incident Dementia: A Prospective Study of 493,787 Individuals Over 16 Years.

OBJECTIVES: Life events can be stressful and have a detrimental impact on health, but evidence is inconclusive regarding life events and dementia risk. The present study tests whether life events are associated with incident dementia, whether experiencing multiple events has cumulative effects, and whether the associations vary across age, sex, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and genetic vulnerability. METHOD: UK Biobank participants (N = 493,787) reported on six life events that occurred within the past two years: serious illness, injury, assault to yourself or close relative, death of a spouse/partner or close relative, marital separation/divorce, and financial problems. Incident all-cause dementia was ascertained through health records from the UK National Health Service over a 16 year follow-up. RESULTS: Serious illness, injury, or assault to yourself, marital separation/divorce, and financial difficulties were associated with a higher risk of dementia; serious illness, injury, or assault of a close relative was associated with a lower risk of dementia. When combined, experiencing three to four events was associated with a more than two-fold increase in dementia risk. The association for marital separation/divorce was stronger within the first five years of follow-up (consistent with reverse causality). Death of a spouse/partner or close relative were mostly unrelated to dementia risk. With few exceptions, the associations were similar across age, sex, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and APOE e4 status groups. DISCUSSION: Severe illness, injury, or personal assault, marital separation or divorce, and financial hardships may raise risk of dementia, particularly when these events occur together.

Comparing Neighbors and Friends in Age-Related Network Changes.

OBJECTIVES: To assess how the role of neighbors and friends in people's networks changes with age and how this is affected by cohort, marriage, employment, and socioeconomic status. The hypothesis is that for most aspects of the network, friends lose 'importance' as people become older, with neighbors gradually becoming more dominant in the non-kin network. METHODS: Data are used for people aged 55-90 between 1999-2019 from the Swiss Household Panel (N=5,585). Four network aspects were measured: size, contact, practical support, and emotional support. Measures for neighbors and friends were compared and analyzed with fixed-effects and hybrid-effects regression models on person-year observations. RESULTS: The sizes of both network segments declined with age but more strongly for friends than neighbors. Contact with friends was stable but contact with neighbors increased. Support from friends declined whereas support from neighbors was stable. Direct comparisons revealed that the relative share of neighbors vis-à-vis friends increased as people age. Friends were more common and supportive vis-à-vis neighbors for divorced and widowed people than for married people, but this gap declined with age. The share of neighbors increased with retirement, especially for men. The share of neighbors vis-à-vis friends was also larger for people with less income and education and this gap did not change with age. DISCUSSION: In the non-kin part of older adults' networks, proximity eventually becomes dominant. This finding is interpreted in terms of rising needs, greater opportunity for local contact, and friend mortality risks, all favoring the neighbor segment of the network.

Divorce and physical health: A three-level meta-analysis.

Divorce is often considered a major and stressful life transition. Given that divorcees are overrepresented in primary care and there is a association between individuals' physical health and psychological adjustment, potential post-divorce health problems are of concern. Yet, empirical evidence is lacking on the magnitude of the overall physical health risk after divorce, on possible differences across specific pathologies, and on factors that may increase or reduce this risk. The current meta-analysis addresses these issues. We identified 94 studies including u = 248 relevant effect sizes, based on N = 1,384,507 participants. Generally, compared to married individuals, divorcees showed significantly worse self-reported health (OR = 1.20, [1.08-1.33]), experienced more physical symptoms (OR = 1.34, [1.17-1.53]), and had a higher risk for diabetes (OR = 1.18 [1.05-1.33]), joint pathologies (OR = 1.24, [1.14-1.34]), cardiovascular (OR = 1.24, [1.09-1.41]) and cerebrovascular conditions (OR = 1.31, [1.14-1.51]), and sexually transmitted diseases (OR = 2.48, [1.32-4.64]). However, they had no increased risk of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, cancer and cancer development, disabilities or limitations, or cognitive pathologies. Nor did divorcees significantly differ from married individuals when aggregating all pathologies to measure overall physical health problems (OR = 1.14, [0.85 to 1.54]). Yet, moderation analyses revealed that being female, unemployed, childless, or having a lower education constitutes a higher risk for overall physical health problems after divorce. The same applied to having a heavy alcohol consumption, lack of exercise, and being overweight. Our meta-analysis shows that divorcees are at heightened risk of certain pathologies, with sexually transmitted diseases as a particular post-divorce hazard. These findings call for more awareness among counsellors and physicians on divorcees' health conditions and the characteristics that make divorcees even more vulnerable to health problems.

Marital Status and Happiness During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objective: This study examines the long-observed marital advantage in happiness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic may have altered the marital advantage in happiness due to changes in social integration processes. However, this has not been explored in previous studies. Method: Data were from the COVID-19 substudy of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (N=2622). A series of regressions were estimated to understand marital status differences in pandemic happiness and changes in relationships with non-resident family and friends. Karlson-Holm-Breen mediation analysis was conducted to examine whether relationships with non-resident family and friends explained the marital association with pandemic happiness. Results: From pre-pandemic to pandemic, married respondents experienced a greater increase in unhappiness than unmarried counterparts, narrowing happiness gaps. However, unmarried individuals, including cohabiting, divorced, widowed, and never married individuals, continued to report higher levels of unhappiness during the pandemic than married peers. These differences primarily stemmed from pre-pandemic happiness. After controlling for pre-pandemic happiness, cohabiting, widowed, and never married older adults did not significantly differ from their married counterparts in reporting unhappiness during the pandemic. In contrast, divorced individuals remained consistently more unhappy than married individuals during the pandemic, mainly due to deteriorated relationship quality with non-resident family. Conclusion: During a global crisis, it is crucial for policymakers, healthcare providers, and researchers to develop innovative interventions to promote happiness and healthy aging among all older adults, paying special attention to those who are divorced.

Are Female-Breadwinner Couples Always Less Stable? Evidence from French Administrative Data.

The paper studies the association between partners' relative incomes and union dissolution among couples in France. With the increase in dual-earner couples and women's educational level, couples in which women earn more than their partners are structurally becoming more widespread. Because female breadwinning challenges long-lived social norms regarding traditional gender roles, scholars have theorized a higher risk of union dissolution among female-breadwinner couples compared to couples in other income arrangements. We estimate the risk of union dissolution using regression analyses on unique longitudinal data from French administrative sources containing an unconventionally high number of couples (4% of the population) and separation events (more than 100,000), as well as precise and reliable income measurement. Female-breadwinner couples face a higher risk of union dissolution compared to other couple types. This result is robust to various definitions of female breadwinning and controls for partners' employment status. Contrary to recent research on other countries, we find no sign of a fading effect among younger cohorts. However, among younger, cohabiting couples and couples in registered partnerships the risk of union dissolution is lowest when both partners are employed and provide a similar share of the total couple's income, suggesting the emergence of a new profile of stable couples. The female-breadwinner penalty in union dissolution is in place; also in France, it holds among married and cohabiting couples and registered partnerships, across all birth cohorts and levels of household income.

Reassessing Chronic Strain: A Research Note on Women's Income Dynamics After Divorce and Separation.

The economic consequences of divorce and separation for women are commonly associated with the chronic strain model, according to which women's losses are large and persistent. This research note shifts the focus to a crisis model highlighting women's potential of, and routes to, recovery from initial losses. Drawing on German Socio-Economic Panel data (1984-2021) on women in marital and cohabiting unions (N ∼ 27,000 women, N ∼ 3,400 divorces and separations), we use fixed-effects regression models and event-history models to analyze changes in equivalized monthly household income and poverty risk across the process of divorce and separation. Results show that most women recovered from their initial economic declines. Although initial losses were common and often sizable, large fractions of women eventually returned to or exceeded the household income expected in the absence of divorce and separation. Recovery was facilitated by the "traditional" route of repartnering and the "modern" route of women mobilizing their productive skills. Both routes appeared more important than the absence of barriers, such as children in the household. We conclude that for the majority of women, the economic consequences of divorce and separation are better described as a temporary crisis than as a chronic strain.

Mothers' parental divorce experience in childhood and their children's mental health: Mediating role of maternal education.

BACKGROUND: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) of mothers have been shown to be associated with children's mental health and behavior problems. It is important to identify effective intervention points to prevent negative consequences among children. This study aimed to investigate whether mothers' education is protective against children's depressive symptoms in families with mothers who experienced parental divorce in childhood. METHODS: Data from a cross-sectional study of 5th and 8th grade children and their caregivers in a prefecture in Japan were used. Final analytic sample consisted of 9666 child-caregiver pairs. Mediation analyses using inverse odds weighting were performed where the exposure was maternal experience of parental divorce in childhood, outcome was child depressive symptoms, and potential mediators were maternal education beyond high school, maternal mental health, and household income. RESULTS: Maternal experience of parental divorce was associated with an elevated risk of child depressive symptoms (risk ratio: 1.22, 95 % confidence interval (CI): 1.07-1.39). Mediation analyses indicated that the combination of maternal education, maternal depression and household income mediated about half of the total effect. In the model where maternal education was the sole mediator, maternal education mediated nearly half of the total effect (risk ratio: 1.10, 95 % CI: 1.01-1.20). LIMITATIONS: Results should be cautiously interpreted given observational and cross-sectional nature of the data. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal education beyond high school may be protective against negative mental health consequences among children due to mothers' experience of parental divorce. Further studies are needed regarding potential mechanisms and the roles of other potential mediators.

Stability in social networks.

Dunbar's number is the cognitive limit of human beings to maintain stable relationships with other individuals in their social networks, and it is found to be 150. It is based on the neocortex size of humans. Usually, Dunbar's number and related phenomena are studied from the perspective of an individual. Dunbar's number also plays a crucial role in evolutionary psychology and allied areas. However, no study done so far has considered a couple who are in a stable relationship as a system from the perspective of Dunbar's number and its hierarchy layers. In this paper, we study the impact of Dunbar's number and Dunbar's hierarchy from the perspective of a couple by studying mathematically the conjoint Dunbar graphs for a couple. The cost of romance is the loss of almost two people from one's support network when a human being enters into a new relationship. Thus, we obtain mathematically that there is no significant change in one's friendship if human beings spend negligible time with their partners. Also, along with marriage and friendship development, we attempt to assess how a person's social network structure holds up over the course of a romantic relationship. The stability of personal social networks is discussed through soft set theory and balance theoretic approach.

Predictors of divorce and duration of marriage among first marriage women in Dejne administrative town.

Divorce is a common occurrence in the marital lives of spouses. Consequently, numerous divorced spouses and their children face various social, economic, physiological, and health problems after breaking their marriage. This study aimed to identify the predictors of divorce and the duration of marriage. We conducted a community-based cross-sectional study among 423 randomly selected residents of Dejen Township in April 2020, of which only 369 respondents met the study inclusion criteria. We used structured questionnaires to collect data. The predictors of divorce and duration of marriage were analyzed using binary logistic regression and the Gompertz regression model, respectively. A p value less than 0.05 was used to express statistical significance. The prevalence of divorce was 21.14% [95% CI (19.01-23.27%)]. Half of these women broke up their marriage after 11 years. A high age difference (7 or more years) between spouses, an early marriage, infertility among women, the presence of third parties, women without formal education, women in the workforce, sexually dissatisfied women, women who did not live together with their husbands at the same address, partner violence, marital control behaviour of husbands, drug-abused husbands, spouses without children, and women who knew multiple sexual partners were the significant predictors of divorce. Partner violence, sexually dissatisfied women, women who made their own marriage decisions, marital control behaviour of husbands, women who did not live together with their husbands at the same address, drug-abused husbands and spouses without children were significant predictors of shorter marriage durations. In this study, the prevalence of divorce was high. Therefore, a community-based, integrated strategy is needed to minimize the divorce rate.

Law, Blood, and Custody: Sexual Minority Mothers and Heteronormativity.

This article analyzes how couples made up of two mothers redefine their roles when they break up as well as how legal professionals frame the custodial arrangements of these former same-sex couples. To do so, we focus on the case of Quebec, Canada, where parentage equality between mothers was attained as early as in 2002. We rely on individual semi-structured interviews with mothers' (N = 17) and legal professionals' accounts (N = 23) as well as on court records regarding physical custody arrangements. We find that the legal recognition of both mothers favors coparenting practices, and especially joint physical custody. However, the heteronormative frame of custody arrangements lingers. Sexual minority mothers struggle with the valorization of birth motherhood and with the standard of gendered parental complementarity. Indeed, professionals can still fall back on heteronormative norms, notably by assigning to non-birth mothers a "paternal" role. In the end, the inexperience of many professionals on LGBTQ+ issues, the embeddedness of heteronormativity in day-to-day relations, as well as the permanence of heteronormative legal categories and professional practices are all factors that set these families apart.

Re-Examining the Link Between Premarital Sex and Divorce.

Premarital sex predicts divorce, but we do not know why. Scholars have attributed the relationship to factors such as differences in beliefs and values, but these explanations have not been tested. It is further unclear how this relationship changes by number of sexual partners, or differs by gender. We re-examine this relationship with event history models using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Models include measures of adolescent beliefs and values, religious background, and personal characteristics, as well as approximate number of premarital sexual partners in young adulthood. We find the relationship between premarital sex and divorce is highly significant and robust even when accounting for early-life factors. Compared to people with no premarital partners other than eventual spouses, those with nine or more partners exhibit the highest divorce risk, followed by those with one to eight partners. There is no evidence of gender differences.

Divorce, genetic risk, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in a sample with recurrent major depressive disorder.

BACKGROUND: Theories of risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) implicate both interpersonal and biological factors. Divorce/separation and aggregate genetic liability are robustly associated with STB, but have seldom been evaluated in conjunction with one another. Furthermore, whether these factors are effective predictors in high-risk populations is not clear. METHODS: Analyses were conducted in a sample of Han Chinese women with severe recurrent major depressive disorder (maximum N = 4380). Logistic regressions were used to evaluate the associations between divorce/separation and polygenic scores (PGS) for suicidal ideation or behavior with STB. Where appropriate, additive interactions between divorce and PGS were tested. RESULTS: Divorce/separation was significantly associated with increased risk of suicidal ideation, plans, and attempts (odds ratios = 1.28-1.61). PGS for suicidal ideation were not associated with STB, while PGS for suicidal behavior were associated with ideation and plans (odds ratios = 1.08-1.09). There were no significant interactions between divorce/separation and PGS. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with theories of suicidality, the disruption or end of an important interpersonal relationship is an indicator of risk for STB. Aggregate genetic liability for suicidal behavior more modestly contributes to risk, but does not exacerbate the negative impact of divorce. Thus, even within a high-risk sample, interpersonal and biological exposures distinguish between those who do and do not experience STB, and could motivate targeted screening. Further research is necessary to evaluate whether and how the context of divorce contributes to variation in its effect on STB risk.

Parenting, Coparenting, and Adolescents' Sense of Autonomy and Belonging After Divorce.

Although there is ample evidence on the importance of experiencing autonomy and belonging for positive adolescent development and the supporting role of parents in this regard, most knowledge stems from intact families. As many youth grow up with divorced parents, this study tested longitudinal links between warm and autonomy supportive parenting and coparental cooperation and conflict on the one hand, and adolescents' post-divorce autonomy and belonging on the other. Data consisted of three-wave self-report data of 191 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 14.36, 61.3% girls) and 227 divorced parents (Mage = 46.08, 74% mothers). Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models showed stable between-family differences, with autonomy relating positively to coparenting and parental autonomy support, and belongingness associating positively solely with parenting. No significant effects were found within families, meaning that changes in (co)parental behaviors did not predict adolescents' experiences of autonomy and belonging or vice versa.

"One man, one life, one marriage": A qualitative analysis of Hmong women's divorce experiences.

Despite the rising divorce rates in some immigrant communities in the US, there has been scant scholarly attention on how immigrants experience divorce, particularly on the role of culture in the divorce process. The primary goal of the present study was to explore the diverse divorce experiences of Hmong immigrants in the United States. As a patrilineal and patriarchal community, divorce is generally frowned upon, with Hmong women often experiencing shame and stigma. A narrative design with nine Hmong women was used to capture their intricate stories that highlight such experiences. Using a thematic analysis, our findings highlighted the complexity and cultural nuances the women in our sample encountered from initiating divorce to the divorce itself: (1) No wants a divorce, (2) Divorce is the "last straw", (3) Varying divorce pathways, and (4) Navigating systems as a Hmong woman. For those who have increased knowledge of both the US American court system and divorce laws along with the traditional Hmong mediations, they may be more equipped in navigating systems. Yet as Hmong divorce practices are performed by Hmong men, Hmong women may struggle with finding their voice or support needed to advocate for their divorce. In such cases, the US court system may be more appealing in assisting their cause (e.g., custody). Professionals working with such communities should be culturally aware and attuned to the different marriage and divorce practices to understand both cultural and legal barriers for those seeking a divorce.

An attachment-based pilot program to promote adolescent adjustment to parental divorce.

The study aimed to assess the impact of an attachment-based intervention on adolescent adaptation to parental divorce. The Adolescent Adjustment Pilot Program to Parental Divorce (AAPPD) employed an experimental group format, targeting improvements in various adaptation indicators (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). The sample comprised 30 Chilean adolescents aged 12 to 16 (M = 13.6, SD = 1.35), with 60% females and 40% males. After the intervention, the adolescents showed a decrease in negative affect at 6 and 12 months. However, no differences were identified in other dimensions of subjective well-being considered as indicators of divorce adaptation. The findings prompt discussion on theoretical and clinical implications.