Mental health and marital stability
Year: 1991
Type: article
Abstract: Mental illness has a variety of medical, social, and economic sequelae. For example, economists have estimated the direct and indirect social costs stemming from mental disorders to be on the order of $43 billion in 1980. Others have linked mental illness to homelessness (Fisher & Breakey, 1986) and reduced earnings (Frank & Gertler, 1991). In this research we are concerned with the impact of diagnosable mental illness on marriage and divorce patterns. We focus on marriage because marital instability has been linked to the “feminization of poverty” (Garfinkel & McLanahan, 1985), to mental health problems in children, and to the economic welfare of families (Frank & Gertler, 1989). Moreover, divorce itself is a major economic burden on the legal system directly and indirectly through litigation for continuation of support payments. Our analysis is presented in the spirit of an exploratory examination of a complex and methodologically difficult issue to understand. The point of departure for the analysis is the economic theory of marriage which has been most closely associated with Becker (1974, 1981). The model weighs the expected benefits and costs of marriage, and if the benefits outweigh the costs a marriage occurs. Similarly, if the marriage partners view the costs of continuing a marriage greater than the benefits a divorce occurs. Many of the costs and benefits are determined by the legal structure that governs personal relationships. An obvious example is the tax disadvantage in marriage in that married couples are in higher tax brackets than are two single individuals. States that have common property laws raise the cost of divorce to the higher income earner and raise the benefits to the lower income earner. States that strictly enforce child and spousal support after divorce raise the cost of divorce. A particularly large form of support after divorce can be the cost of caring for a mentally ill former spouse. Our empirical focus is on effect of mental distress on divorce. The analysis uses a unique set of data drawn from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) sponsored Epidemiological Catchment Area (ECA) study. The data provide detailed information on the social, economic, and mental health characteristics of a probability sample of the population in the eastern part of Baltimore City (Eaton et al., 1986). The analysis presented below offers an
Authors: Richard G. Frank, Paul Gertler
Institutions: Johns Hopkins University, RAND Corporation
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,510
OpenAlex ID: W2111259380