Women who win the lottery are twice more likely to seek divorce: study
What would you do if you win the lottery?
Depending on the amount, many lucky winners would say that they’d use their money to buy a new home or their dream car. They might even travel or invest in their future.
But how exactly does that kind of windfall affect marriages?
A new study by the Sweden-based National Bureau of Economic Research shows that money effects men and women very differently.
The research, published in March, aimed to look into how “large, positive wealth shocks” impacts marriage and fertility. Researchers looked into its effects in a sample of Swedish lottery players ten years after their win.
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They discovered that men are more likely to stay married after a sizeable lottery win of SEK$1 million (CAD$131,973). In fact, their risk of divorce falls drastically by 40%. When it comes to how a lottery win affects fertility rates, men are also likely to have more children, regardless of whether or not they’re married.
As for unmarried men who win the lottery, their chances of getting married in the next five years goes up by 30%.
But women who win the lottery choose a completely different path.
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According to researchers, female lottery winners in unhappy marriages are twice more likely to get divorced in the short-term.
“Intuitively, a lottery win may give a discontent wife economic opportunity to leave the marriage, while men use the prize money in a way that increases the gains from marriage,” states the study.
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