Study Shows Risk of Divorce Increases When the Wife Is Diagnosed with a Chronic or Serious Illness

 Posted on April 23, 2015 in Divorce

In a new study funded by the National Institute on Aging, researchers from the University of Indianapolis and Iowa State University published data that appears to indicate that the risk of divorce is heightened if one partner, specifically the wife in a heterosexual coupling, is diagnosed with a serious or chronic illness. If the wife contracts an illness, the marriage was found to have a six percent greater chance of ending in divorce than if the husband is diagnosed as ill.

Chronic Health Issues and Divorce

In a sampling of almost three thousand married couples with at least one partner age fifty or older, the study’s findings show that if either partner contracts a serious illness there is a thirty-percent chance that the marriage will end in divorce. There is a nearly twenty-five percent chance the marriage will end in widowhood.