A Comprehensive Study on Marital Instability

Contributed by: Editor on Wednesday, July 15 2009 @ 04:18 pm

Last modified on

I heard about a Australian study and paper called "What’s love got to do with it?" today on our local talk radio station. I also see that Markus over at the Paradigm Shift makes reference to it as well.

The data used in the study is from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA) and the paper will be presented at the 2009 HILDA Survey Research Conference on July 16 and 17 at University of Melbourne.

The study analyses a range of factors including the relationship between personality, gender and occupation. The researchers investigated individual and couple characteristics associated with marital instability and found that characteristics of men and women can have quite different impacts on marital stability.

This Australian paper takes a look at 2,482 married couples for 6 years (from 2001 to 2007) and attempts to identify the factors associated with marital problems.

Here are some of the higher risk factors associated with marital instability:

  • One partner smokes, and the other one doesn't (the same rule can be applied to drinking).
  • Almost twice as many marriages which had a low household income separated (16%) when compared to families who are financially stable (9%).
  • A woman who wants children more than her husband.
  • If the age difference is greater than 9 years (the man being older), it doubles your risk of separation.
  • Men who married under 25 years of age are twice as likely to divorce.
  • 20% of couples who had children (either together or from other relationships) before the marriage, divorced. It is only a 9% separation rate for couples who did not have children before the marriage.

This research paper is an excellent resource for dating site owners in helping to create a more accurate matchmaking system. While the data is out of Australia, their culture is not that much different from ours here in North America. For the most part, all of the popular dating sites have released very little information on how their matchmaking systems work. In part, it is because they want to keep trade secrets but they also worry about negative reviews from peers. I also have a feeling, a fair number of dating sites do not have any independent scientific research to back up their matchmaking algorithms.

Here is a local copy of the full paper.

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Dating Sites Reviews - A Comprehensive Study on Marital Instability
https://www.datingsitesreviews.com/article.php?story=Comprehensive-Study-Marital-Instability