Sick Wives Boosting Divorce Rate, Study

According to a new study, researchers have found that with older couples - when a wife becomes seriously ill, there is a 6 per cent greater probability that the marriage would end in divorce. However the risk of divorce was not higher when the husband was recorded as the sick spouse.

The sample included 2,701 marriages with at least one spouse being 50 or older for the study. They analysed data on married heterosexual couples between the years 1992 and 2010. It should be noted that the data here doesn't suggest which spouse initiated the divorce.

During this period, 32 per cent of the marriages ended in divorce when compared to 24 per cent which ended in widowhood- resulting in the death of either spouse. While widowhood was more common with older couples, divorce was more common with younger couples.

The researchers found that when the husband fell sick, it did not raise chances of divorce but the study showed a 6 per cent increase in divorce rates when the wife was diagnosed with the illness- leading to significant gender difference.

Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies of Iowa State and lead author of the study, Amelia Karraker feels a serious illness could affect a marriage in a number of ways.

Marriages are sometimes put under a lot of stress when the healthy spouse has to be the primary care giver and should also take on the responsibility of running the household.

 Professor Karraker explains, "There is a difference between feeling too sick to make dinner and needing someone to actually feed you. That's something that can really change the dynamics within a marriage. If your spouse is too sick to work, we know that financial strain is a major predictor of divorce in and of itself."

Other stressors such as quality of care can also be a reason. Sick wives may not be happy with the quality of care shown by the husbands since men in general have not been raised to be caregivers in the same manner as women.