Separated and divorced women compared with married controls. Selected life satisfaction, stress and health indices from a community survey.

A stratified sample of 31 French-Canadian and 33 English-Canadian separated or divorced (S/D) mothers and matched married controls were identified by telephone in four high-income census tracts of Montreal. The 128 women were home-interviewed by questionnaire which included extensive sections on health, stress and life satisfaction. It was predicted that modern S/D women with children would be better off as regards satisfaction, stress and health than pre-women's liberation era women, and that they would be as well or better off than the married controls. These hypotheses were supported only in part. The S/D were significantly worse off than the married in four areas (general life satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, self-esteem and use of professional therapists) and on almost all other health-stress measures, there were trends favouring the married. There were no significant differences or no trends favouring the S/D. Nonetheless, the S/D did appear to be considerably better off when compared with the picture of the S/D in the earlier literature. The greater frequency of depressions and greater use of therapists by the English-Canadian women was thought to reflect their weaker network of supportive relatives as well as the impact of recent political changes in Quebec.