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Marriage and Divorce

Marriage and divorce affect not only individuals and families but also societies and economies. RAND research related to marriage and divorce includes studies on family planning and fertility, domestic violence and abuse, effects on physical health, wage-earning potential and economic security, workforce impacts, welfare services, and outcomes related to age of first marriage.

Blog

A Peacekeeping Operation in Ukraine, Synthetic Opioids, Geoengineering: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on why it may be time to consider a peacekeeping operation in northern Ukraine, supporting veterans with traumatic brain injury, a new response to synthetic opioids, and more.

Apr 29, 2022
Journal Article

Increasing the Minimum Wage Could Reduce Divorce in Low-Income Households

U.S. survey data reveals that, among men and women earning low wages, a one-dollar increase in the state minimum wage was linked to delayed marriage and reduced divorce. Both changes are likely to strengthen low-income families.

Mar 16, 2022
Commentary

Is Sleeping in Separate Beds Bad for Your Relationship? A Sleep Scientist Answers

Sleep occupies about one-third of our lives, and there isn't a one-size-fits all sleeping strategy for all couples. That said, all couples should make sleep a priority—for both of them. That could mean sleeping apart.

Mar 24, 2020
Journal Article

Leave Policies and Practice for Non-Traditional Families

This policy memo provides an overview of the extent to which non-traditional families are taken into account by Member States in developing family leave policies.

Aug 16, 2019
Periodical

RAND Review: March-April 2018

This issue features a Q&A with Michael Rich, Soledad O'Brien, and Francis Fukuyama on the perils of truth decay, and a story on the trend toward unretirement among U.S. workers. The Voices column features Gulrez Shah Azhar on environmental refugees.

Mar 5, 2018
Journal Article

The Effect of a Supreme Court Decision Regarding Gay Marriage on Social Norms and Personal Attitudes

Institutions such as the Supreme Court can shift perceptions of social norms, and therefore behavior such as support for gay marriage, without changing personal opinions.

Jan 31, 2018
Commentary

Debunking 5 Myths of Sleeping Together

About a third of American adults choose not to sleep with their partner, and evidence suggests that their ranks are growing. This decision often results in social stigma, including some dubious assumptions that sleeping apart is a sign of a sexless or otherwise unhappy marriage.

Sep 27, 2017
Journal Article

Observed Relationship Behaviors and Sleep in Military Veterans and Their Partners

Associations between the relationship behaviors of young veterans and their spouses and measured sleep quality suggest that interventions to decrease hostility could improve both marital and physical health.

Jun 1, 2017
Journal Article

The Salience and Severity of Relationship Problems Among Low-Income Couples

Developing policies that are responsive to the needs of, and attractive to, low-income couples requires, at minimum, descriptive data on the challenges those couples perceive in their own relationships.

Apr 13, 2017
Journal Article

Marital Conflict and Nocturnal Blood Pressure Dipping in Military Couples

Marital conflict among veterans and their partners may "blunt" the dip in blood pressure that normally occurs during the night, and this may lead to a higher risk of CVD.

Nov 28, 2016
Journal Article

Schooling, Marriage, and Age at First Birth in Madagascar

The low school attainment, early marriage, and low age at first birth of females are major policy concerns in less developed countries. This study jointly estimated the determinants of educational attainment, marriage age, and age at first birth among females aged 12-25 in Madagascar.

Oct 31, 2016
Commentary

The Impact of Deployments on Military Marriages

The evidence linking combat deployments directly to poorer marital functioning has been sparse and contradictory. Although marital satisfaction among military couples declined from 2003 to 2009, the divorce rate among them remained steady.

Sep 2, 2016
Commentary

'In the Deployment Life Study, I Saw My Own Family'

RAND's Deployment Life Study was designed to examine how deployment affects the health and well-being of military families. M.M. Smith, an active-duty military spouse, offers her response to the study.

Jul 18, 2016
Essay

The Resilience of Military Families

Deployment of a spouse and parent can shake a military family to its core. But according to RAND research, these families display remarkable resilience.

Jun 16, 2016
Journal Article

Does Improving Marital Quality Improve Sleep? Results from a Marital Therapy Trial

Improving a marriage leads to better sleep, especially for husbands.

Apr 29, 2016
Commentary

Study Finds Most Military Families Are Resilient in Face of Deployment

Despite the fact that service members, spouses, and their children experience frequent deployments to combat zones throughout the world, a recent study of more than 2,700 military families found that they generally fare well and adapt effectively to the stresses of deployment.

Apr 22, 2016
Research Brief

How Military Families Respond Before, During and After Deployment

What happens to military families over the course of a deployment cycle? And how do post-deployment outcomes differ between families who did and did not experience deployment?

Apr 15, 2016
Report

Insights from the Deployment Life Study

Experiences during a service member's deployment can have a profound impact on how families fare during the reintegration period. But for many experienced military families, functioning eventually returns to pre-deployment levels.

Apr 7, 2016
Journal Article

Do Student Loans Delay Marriage?

The financial weight of monthly student loan repayments reduces the likelihood of marriage in the four years immediately after graduation, but only for women.

Nov 19, 2015
Journal Article

A Social Network Comparison of Low-Income Black and White Newlywed Couples

This study draws on interviews with 57 first-married newlyweds from low-income communities to compare the composition and structure of Black and White couples' duocentric social networks.

Nov 11, 2015

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