Fairytales typically end with princes marrying pretty girls and living happily ever after. This is as true in the Arabian Nights as it is in the brothers Grimm. But is it really true that marriage and happiness go together? If so, what is the impact of the rising divorce rate?
In 2014, the Dubai statistics centre reported that divorce among non-Emirati couples increased by 61.57 per cent from 2011 to 2013. Similarly, data from the National Bureau of Statistics suggests that divorces among Emiratis increased by 38 per cent between 2013 and 2014.
More disconcerting still, when you focus on younger citizens – those between the ages of 20 and 29 – the divorce rate shoots up even higher. Among this group, the data suggests that many are divorcing soon after marriage, typically within the first year. So, what impact is this having on well-being?
One of the most consistent findings from the research exploring marital status and well-being, is that married couples enjoy better mental and physical health than the unmarried. For instance, the divorced, the never married, the widowed and the cohabiting all tend to have higher rates of depression than their married counterparts.
Some studies even show that those in their first marriage enjoy better mental health status than those who are remarried. Furthermore, some longitudinal studies suggest that the positive or protective effects of marriage tend to increase with time. In other words, those who remain married generally get happier over time, while the unmarried deteriorate.
In addition to rising divorce rates in the Gulf, there are slightly alarmist regional reports of mass spinsterhood (delayed marriage). One newspaper in Qatar suggests that a quarter of all Qatari women will remain unmarried. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia too, large figures are also bandied around: 1.5 million Saudi women will remain spinsters, proclaims one source. One hundred and seventy-five thousand Emirati women will remain spinsters, foresees another. What these reports don’t provide is an adequate definition of spinsterhood.
How old do you have to be to qualify for this stigmatising label? And how is this information calculated? The figures reported seem speculative at best. However, few would debate the idea that more Gulf women are remaining unmarried for longer than they once did.
Remaining unmarried is associated with poorer health status. However it is unmarried men, not women, who seem to be the worst affected. A 20-year longitudinal study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2015 confirmed this, concluding that remaining unmarried was more detrimental for the health of men than it was for the health of women. Divorce also seems to be particularly hard on men. Depression, for instance, tends to be more common and severe among male divorcees.
Research suggests that unmarried men in the US are 3.5 times more likely to take their own lives than their married male counterparts (unmarried women are 2.8 times more likely to kill themselves than married women). Recent data published by the National Center for Health Statistics also suggest that the US is experiencing a 30-year high in of suicide rates.
One factor implicated in the US suicide rise is the decline in marriage rates and the increase in divorce. One theory about the apparent happiness promoting properties of marriage is known as the "social causation hypothesis".
This common sense idea simply suggests that marriage promotes well-being by protecting people from social isolation and providing them with support to draw upon during stressful times. Nobody lives happily ever after. Marriage however, it seems, can sometimes provide us – especially men – with a shelter from the worst that life can throw at us.
Dr Justin Thomas is an associate professor of psychology at Zayed University and author of Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States
On Twitter: @DrJustinThomas
