Dancers more vulneable to rocky marriage

Marital blues

A new study exploring link between various occupations and rates of divorce has found that engineers are less likely to be separated from their partners while the number of divorce cases is highest among dancers.

Dancers and choreographers registered the highest divorce rates (43.1 per cent), followed by bartenders (38.4 per cent) and massage therapists (38.2 per cent), “The Washington Post” reported quoting a research published in the “Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology”.

The study, co-authored by Michael Aamodt, a professor emeritus at Radford University, is based on the observation of American couples registered in 2000.

Student Shawn P McCoy, another co-author of the study, pressed census officials to provide data that could be parsed to reveal divorce and separation rates for Americans working in 449 jobs.

The study found that separation rates varied widely across the profession. Just 12.5 per cent of detectives were divorced, but 25.5 per cent of fish and game wardens had broken up with a spouse. Among the top 10 separating professionals were casino workers, telephone operators, nurses and domestic health aides.

Engineers were represented among the 10 occupations with the lowest divorce rates. But, researchers say the numbers don’t paint a complete picture.

If a person had divorced and remarried by the time of the census, they would be counted as married. So it could be the case that people in some occupations are just quicker to jump into the next marriage than others.

The authors said the data did not explain whether it’s the nature of the jobs that lead to divorce, or people prone to unstable relationships are drawn to certain professions.

“One of the things I found is that job stress spills over into our relationships. It can be not getting along with our colleagues or our boss... or the actual amount of time that we need to spend at work or doing work at home that spills over and affects our marriages negatively,” said Terri Orbuch, a sociologist and author of “5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage From Good to Great”.