Couldn't Help Noticing

Divorce and depression

Try this quick quiz:

1. People who have recently gone through a marriage dissolution are
   1. more likely to become depressed than people who remain married;
   2. less likely to become depressed than people who remain married;
   3. equally likely to become depressed as people who remain married.
2. Men who have recently gone through a marriage dissolution are:
   1. more likely to become depressed than women who have recently gone through a marriage dissolution;
   2. less likely to become depressed than women who have recently gone through a marriage dissolution;
   3. equally likely to become depressed as women who have recently gone through a marriage dissolution.

If you answered ‘a’ to both questions, you have answered correctly—at least according to a new study conducted in Canada.

The longitudinal study shows that

among married people who did not report having had symptoms of depression in the year before their baseline interview, a new depressive episode was nearly four times as common (12%) if they were separated, divorced or single at the follow-up interview, compared with those who remained in a relationship (3%).

However, bear in mind that “marriage” was loosely defined to mean married or de facto. I think it would have been interesting to see if the impact of a broken marriage was more damaging than the impact of a break-up of a de facto relationship.

These results are not completely explained by some of the consequences of divorce/break-up (like “change in adjusted household income, change in social support, change in number of children in household, change in work status”), even though those consequences doubtless have some bearing on resulting depression.

Perhaps relationships actually matter to men and women more than some people seem to think. Perhaps God is right that the ideal is life-long marriage.