Beware! Divorcing earlier in age may affect your health more than if you put off the divorce to later in life.

Jack Dikian

February 2012

Beware! Divorcing earlier in age may affect your health more than if you put off the divorce to later in life.

According to a new study by sociologist at Michigan State University appearing in the research Journal Social Science & Medicine, suggests that divorce at a younger age damages people's health more than divorce later in life.

The researcher, Hui Liu analyzed the self-reported health of over 1000 participants in Americans' Changing Lives, a long-term national survey and measured the gap in health status between those who remained married during the 15-year study period and those who divorced, at certain ages and among different birth cohorts, or generations.

Liu found the gap was wider at younger ages. For example, among people born in the 1950s, those who got divorced between the ages of 35 and 41 reported more health problems in relation to their continuously married counterparts than those who got divorced in the 44 to 50 age range.