Enduring marriage safeguards mental health-for both men and women. But marital failure immediately jeopardizes the psychological well-being of men and women. To investigate the timing and character of the psychological harm visited upon both genders when marriages fail, sociologists at the University of Alberta recently pored over data collected between 1994 and 1998 from a nationally representative sample of over eleven thousand men and women.They began their analysis of the data fully aware that "despite the growing retreat from marriage in both Canada and the United States ... studies clearly show that married individuals enjoy longer lives and are in better physical and mental health than their unmarried counterparts." What they sought to establish through their analysis, however, is whether marital breakup affects men and women in the same way, particularly in the short run.
The Alberta scholars' analysis first confirms what the researchers already knew. "We find," the researchers report, "that marriage continues to be beneficial for mental health." The Canadian men and women in a stable marriage throughout the study period experienced "significantly lower levels of distress relative to those who remain single, separated, or divorced."The data further indicate that "entry into marriage is associated with lower levels of distress and a transition out of marriage increases psychological distress." But the Alberta team naturally focuses on the answer to their primary research question: "We find no evidence," the investigators write, "to suggest that the short-term effects of change in marital status on psychological distress are different for men and women." In other words, the disintegration of a marriage puts the former husband and the former wife in equal short-term psychological peril.
(Source: Lisa Strohschein et al., "Marital Transitions and Mental Health: Are There Gender Differences in the Short-Term Effects of Marital Status Change?" Social Science & Medicine 61 [2005]: 2293-2303.) (Hat tip -- The Howard Center)
