More studies prove health benefits of marriage
Another major study, this one conducted by the University of Chicago and the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, has announced its findings that divorce undermines health irredeemably and that married life results in good health outcomes for both men and women. The study also revealed that the experience of widowhood and divorces leave ongoing detrimental health outcomes even if one remarries.
Many research investigations have looked at the relationship of health, longevity and marriage over recent years, but the researchers of this study claim that it is the first to look more closely at ‘marital transitions’ and ‘marital status affect’ on a wide range of health dimensions.
The study looked at nearly 10,000 people aged 51 to 61 years. It found that the marriage brings an immediate health reward for both sexes, by improving various health behaviours of men, and increasing financial well-being for women. Both of these advantages continue through the life of the marriage. Divorce and widowhood then reverse these health benefits by withdrawing them: income drops for women, and good health behaviours fall away for males, and for both the stress of handling the responsibilities of daily life alone takes its toll.
The people who are ‘currently married but previously divorced’ have worse health compared to the ‘currently married and never divorced’; and the ‘divorced and not remarried’ have the worst health on all dimensions. Divorced or widowed people have 20% more of the chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer than married people, and 23% more mobility limitations. People who have never married have 12% more mobility limitations and 13% more depression, but the same chronic health conditions as married people.
The research will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour in an article entitled Marital Biography and Health Midlife authored by Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Linda Waite.
Another recent study, by Jianguo Liu and Eunice Yu at Michigan State University and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that divorce was also, of all things, ‘bad for the environment’. By explaining that, with divorce on the rise globally, it now takes twice as many housing units to shelter everyone. These housing units take up precious space, double the demand on the power grid, increased water consumption and require twice as many appliances and other manufactured goods, etc. Therefore all of the economies of scale achieved through group living are lost with divorce.
So, when considering divorce, people should now first think about the long-known destructive lifelong effects on their children, the many financial costs, the undermining of their physical health and the health of the environment. Come to think of it, there is in fact very little to be said for divorce. But as Christians we already knew that, didn’t we?
References: Michigan State University (2007, December 5). A Really Inconvenient Truth: Divorce Is Not Green. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/12/071203190625.htm; University of Chicago (2009, July 28). Divorce Undermines Health In Ways Remarriage Doesn’t Heal. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090727135523.htm