Is Divorce Contagious?
"Breaking up is hard to do, unless everyone else is doing it too,"
say three social scientists in a new working paper.
In the paper (hat tip to the New York Times blog Freakonomics), Rose McDermott, Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler argue that divorce can spread through circles of friends because one's social network influences their romantic and sexual practices.
Using a 32-year sample, the study finds that
"a person is 75 percent more likely to be divorced if a person that they are directly connected to is divorced."