האם גרושים עוזרים לאנשים להיות מאושרים יותר?

האם גירושים עוזרים לאנשים להיות מאושרים יותר? ערך יששכר עשת

Does Divorce Make People Happy?
Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages
By Linda J. Waite, Don Browning, William J. Doherty, Maggie Gallagher, Ye Luo, and Scott M. Stanley

July 11, 2002.

Institute for American Values 2002

http://www.americanvalues.org/index.html

   מחקר רב היקף בדק את שאלת הסיכוי לאושר בעקבות גירושים. התשובה ממחקר רב היקף זה היא שבדרך כלל לא. זאת ועוד, שני שליש מהזוגות שדיווחו על חיי נישואים גרועים שיפרו את חיי הנישואים אחרי שנתיים עד חמש שנים. אנשים שהתגרשו לא דווחו שנעשו יותר מאושרים בהשוואה לאלו שנשארו בנישואים הלא מאושרים. גם אלו שהתחתנו שנית לא בהכרח דווחו שהם מאושרים יותר.

   מחקרים אחרים כן מציעים לאישה כן לשקול גירושים במצב שבו היא בסכנה בגלל שלוש סיבות: א. אלימות כלפיה וכלפי הילדים. ב. עבריינות של הבעל שמערבת את האישה בפלילים מסכני חיים וסכנת עוני. ג. התמכרויות המסכנות את האישה בעבריינות, עוני ואלימות המכור.

   Most people assume that a person stuck in a bad marriage has two choices: stay married and miserable or get a divorce and become happier.

   But now come the findings from the first scholarly study ever to test that assumption, and these findings challenge conventional wisdom. Conducted by a team of leading family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite, the study found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married.

   Even more dramatically, the researchers also found that two-thirds of unhappily married spouses who stayed married reported that their marriages were happy five years later. In addition, the most unhappy marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later

   The research team used data collected by the National Survey of Family and Households, a nationally representative survey that extensively measures personal and marital happiness. Out of 5,232 married adults interviewed in the late Eighties, 645 reported being unhappily married.  Five years later,
these same adults were interviewed again. Some had divorced or separated and some had stayed married.

   The study found that on average unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed married when rated on any of 12 separate measures of psychological well-being. Divorce did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or increase a
sense of mastery. This was true even after controlling for race, age, gender, and income. Even unhappy spouses who had divorced and remarried were no happier on average than those who stayed married.

   "Staying married is not just for the childrens' sake. Some divorce is necessary, but results like these suggest the benefits of divorce have been oversold.