Going through a divorce can be a stressful and emotional experience. It can disrupt your home, identity, relationships, and financial stability. What will life be like without your partner? Will you be alone, or will you find someone else? Should you involve divorce lawyers?
To prevent your marriage from ending in pain, disruption, and uncertainty, you should understand how different factors contribute to divorces. It can help open communication between you and your spouse, allowing you to address potential issues before they cause conflict.
This article discusses one factor: careers. It explores the link between careers and divorces, highlights the 10 careers with the highest divorce rates, and then explores the common factors between them.
The Relationship Between Careers and Divorces
Every decision you make, however inconsequential it may seem, can affect your current and future life, including your career choice. While people in all professions can enjoy lifelong marriages, some occupations are more prone to divorce than others.
Careers can affect divorce rates in various ways, including:
- Long work hours can disrupt the work-life balance, straining your marriage.
- Stress and unfulfillment from work can spill over into personal life, increasing conflict and marital problems.
- Low pay can cause conflicts about money, leading to divorce.
- Spending more time with others at work than with the spouse can lead to extramarital affairs.
A study by Nathan Yau, a statistician from the Flowing Data website, found a strong correlation between career choices and divorce rates. This article highlights the ten careers he found to have the highest rates.
Please note that if your or your spouse’s career is on the list, don’t hand in your two weeks’ notice, change your career aspirations, or resign yourself to the inevitable divorce. Correlation is not causation, and statistics don’t apply to individuals.
Professions With the Highest Divorce Rates
According to Nathan Yau’s study, the following professions have the highest divorce rates:
1. Gaming Managers
Yau found a 52.9% divorce rate among gaming managers in casinos and other gambling environments. This is partly due to their work-related stress. They usually work long hours, constantly bearing the weight of making decisions in an environment full of alcohol and demanding clients.
Accumulating work-related stress can create emotional distance. So, gaming managers can find connecting with their spouses and resolving even minor marriage issues challenging. The environment also promotes social interaction, and alcohol lowers inhibitions, giving them more opportunities for infidelity.
2. Bartenders
Bartenders have the second-highest divorce rate of 52.7%. It is consistent with the findings of the LendingTree study, which ranked them at the top of the list.
Some factors that contribute to this high divorce rates include:
- Bartenders can be called into work or required to work long hours on short notice, so they have no time exclusively for their partner.
- They work during times when spouses are supposed to spend quality time together, such as nights and weekends.
- They constantly interact with drunk, flirtatious people.
- An occasional drink on the job can lower their inhibition, making them engage in infidelity.
Coupling these with the low pay and stressful environment explains the high bartender divorce rates.
3. Flight Attendants
Flight attendants have a 50.5% divorce rate because they are away from home for extended periods. Their absence can reduce their time with their spouse, making both spouses lonely and weakening their bond.
The job is also quite stressful, as they don’t get to explore their destination. They only arrive, prepare, and get on their next flight.
4. Gaming Services Workers
50.3% of people working in casinos and other gambling environments divorce. The environment is very stressful. Combine that with flowing alcohol and an environment that encourages people to take risks, and you have a recipe for disaster.
5. Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
Using PUMS data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Zippia found that blue-collar workers have the highest divorce rates for people under thirty. This applies to rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders.
The role of rolling machine setters, operators, and tenders involves shift work, so they work irregular hours and spend extended periods away from home. This reduces opportunities for spending quality time with their spouse to maintain their bond and emotional connection.
The lack of emotional connection between partners can lead to increased misunderstandings and conflict, which explains the 50.1% divorce rate.
6. Switchboard Operators
Working as a switchboard operator can be stressful. You talk to people all day, constantly dealing with unpleasant replies from unhappy and stressed-out people. Doing the same monotonous thing from morning to evening to meet set targets can be unfulfilling.
Taking that stress home daily can build emotional detachment because you just want peace instead of forming a connection with your loved ones. It can blow up even minor disagreements and conflicts, leading to a divorce.
7. Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
This career has a divorce rate of 49.6%. Industrial workers’ jobs are physically demanding, have long, irregular work hours, and don’t pay well. Workers often go home tired and stressed, so they can’t spend quality time with their spouses. This can break their bond, so any major conflict can end in a divorce.
8. Telemarketers
Telemarketers spend the entire day speaking to people, trying to get them to buy something. People constantly hang up, insult, and yell at them, so it can be challenging to go home happy. They also spend long hours doing the same thing repeatedly, which can stress them and cause burnout.
The stress and burnout can be transferred to the marriage, resulting in the high 47.8% divorce rate.
9. Textile Knitting and Weaving Machine Operators and Tenders
48.9% of all textile knitting and weaving machine operators and tenders will ultimately divorce their spouses.
The long hours, relatively low pay, and the repetitive nature of operating the machines can lead to unfulfillment and unhappiness. It is difficult to go back home happy at the end of such a long day, and the unhappiness can spill over into their marriage, leading to a divorce.
10. Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
The 48.8% divorce rate among extruding, forming, pressing, and compacting machine setters, operators, and tenders is partly caused by low income and lack of a college education.
The career also involves shift work, which entails irregular hours and long periods away from home. Constant disruptions to daily routines can make it difficult for spouses to stay connected, leading to a high divorce rate.
What Do These Careers Have in Common?
Careers with the highest divorce rates have common characteristics and demands that can cause strain or challenges in marriages. Any career with these characteristics can have high divorce rates, even if it is not included in the list above.
Some of these characteristics and examples of careers that can have them include:
- Long working hours: Careers that demand long and irregular working hours, such as lawyers, doctors, and entertainers, can limit time spent together, creating a rift in a relationship. Couples drift apart when they no longer feel connected.
- High stress levels: Professions with high levels of stress, such as those in the military, healthcare, or law enforcement, can lead to emotional exhaustion, communication breakdown, and increased conflict in marriages.
- Frequent travel: Jobs requiring frequent travel, such as being a professional athlete or salesperson, can create distance and disrupt family life. It can lead to distance and disconnection, resulting in isolation and contempt. It is more challenging when the couple has children, as they could feel overwhelmed and alone.
- Financial pressures: Careers with irregular income or high financial stakes, like owning a business, can contribute to financial stress, a common factor in divorce.
- Shift work: Partners in occupations involving shift work may have different schedules, making it challenging to spend quality time together. Maintaining open and consistent communication can be challenging when one partner is working when the other is available.
- High level of responsibilities: Professions with high responsibility and pressure, such as executives or top-level managers, may require significant time and energy, potentially impacting personal relationships.
If your career has these characteristics, you should address the challenges or seek professional help from a therapist before it ends in divorce.
The Silver Lining
Your marriage isn’t doomed just because you or your spouse works in these professions. Several gaming managers, bartenders, and people in high-divorce-risk careers have been happily married for decades. An excellent example is Matt Damon and Luciana Barroso’s 19-year marriage.
The reason people in these professions have high divorce rates is not always directly related to their careers. So, switching careers won’t necessarily change the outcome. It can even make things worse.
There is hope, even if you are a gaming manager married to a bartender. A Forbes Advisor survey found that only 5% of divorcees believe their marriage couldn’t be saved. So, if you are going through marital issues, it’s more than likely that your partner prefers solving to ending things. Seek professional help from a therapist or couples counselor to stop your union from collapsing.
Contact Petrelli Previtera, LLC Family Lawyers for Guidance
According to Nathan Yau’s study, gaming managers, bartenders, and flight attendants divorce more than people in other careers due to long work hours, stressful work environments, and other factors. But that doesn’t mean your marriage is doomed if you or your spouse have or are considering these occupations. There is still hope.
Contact the Petrelli Previtera, LLC family lawyers for guidance if you are considering divorce. Our experienced lawyers understand the pain, disruption, and uncertainty of a divorce and can help you in these tough times. We can assess your situation, help you understand your rights, obligations, and potential outcomes, and guide you to protect your interests.
We serve clients in Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Linwood, Princeton, Texas, Washington DC, and several other locations. Contact us today for an in-person or video consultation.