Breaking Bonds, Changing Habits: Understanding Health Behaviors during and after Marital Dissolution

Objective. We examined changes in smoking and drinking throughout marital dissolution by gender, education, and parenthood status.Background. Marital dissolution is a stressful and demanding transition. Stress levels associated with this trigger event can vary and lead to potentially unhealthy coping strategies, making it an important site for understanding how health behaviors might change.Method. We analyzed a longitudinal, representative survey of Australian women (N = 6,612) and men (N = 6,690) who were either continuously married or experienced marital separation between 2002 and 2020. We used fixed-effect linear probability models to assess changes in health behaviors throughout the marital dissolution process and Cox proportional hazards models to predict the likelihood of smoking and drinking cessation for those respondents who smoked or drank in the year of separation. Results. Smoking probability increased at the time of separation for both men and women, a trend that dissipated in the years after separation, particularly for men. Highly educated women were the most likely to stop smoking after separation. Women were also more likely to increase their regular drinking at the time of separation, though women with lower levels of education were the most likely to stop drinking after the separation. Women who lived with children in the years before separation showed especially critical increases in the probability to drink and smoke.Conclusion. Results show dynamic, adverse changes in women’s and men’s health behaviors over the marital separation process pointing toward unhealthy coping and a need to provide targeted support throughout marital dissolution.