Echtscheiding, initiatorstatus en herpartneren: Wat is het effect op de mentale gesteldheid?

Abstract

The objective of this research is to examine the effects of initiatorstatus and remarriage on the mental health after divorce. Furthermore, the question if the effects of the initiatorstatus differ between initiators who enter a new relationship and those who do not will be addressed. No prior research has focused on this question. We address this omission using the retrospective lifetime research ‘Scheiden in Nederland’ from 2000. This data contains 2394 respondents of whom 1782 are divorced. Out of these divorced respondents, 923 have entered a new relationship. Our results suggest, contrary to similar prior research, that initiators do not have a better mental health than non-initiators do. However, initiators do tend to remarriage earlier. Besides that, our results suggest that people who enter a new relationship have a better mental health than people who do not. In conclusion, our results do not suggest any difference in the mental health between initiators who enter a new relationship and initiators who do not.