Is Divorce Contagious?

Maybe. A new working paper finds “that divorce can spread between friends, siblings, and coworkers, and there are clusters of divorcees that extend two degrees of separation in the network.” Rose McDermott, Nicholas A. Christakis, and?James H. Fowler relied on a 32-year sample from the Framingham Heart Study for their study. The authors conclude that “attending to the health of one’s friends’ marriages serves to support and enhance the durability of one’s own relationship, and that, from a policy perspective, divorce should be understood as a collective phenomenon that extends far beyond those directly affected.” (HT: Jon Forest)[%comments]