Episode #94
Does Your Job Affect Your Chances of Divorce? What the Data Says - Ep 94
In Episode 94 of Cases & Cocktails , Bryan and Janice Eggleston look at data on divorce, separation, and remarriage rates across professions—and some of the results are surprising. From healthcare workers and telemarketers to scientists and engineers, the numbers lead to a bigger conversation about work stress, demanding schedules, emotional exhaustion, and what happens when your career starts following you home. But before getting into the numbers, there’s a cocktail to pour. This Week's Cocktail: Sparkling Dragon Fruit Margarita Episode 94 features a colorful Sparkling Dragon Fruit Margarita, inspired by dragon fruit's tropical flavor. Ingredients: Dragon fruit Lime juice Agave Tequila Sparkling water The result is a bright, refreshing cocktail to accompany a conversation about a subject that might make some married couples take a second look at their career choices. Which Careers Have the Highest Divorce Rates? The episode draws on data Bryan and Janice discuss from Visual Capitalist, which references an analysis of American Community Survey data. The figures examine the share of ever-married workers who are currently divorced, separated, or remarried. Before looking at the list, Bryan and Janice expected some traditionally high-stress professions to rank near the top. Finance seemed like an obvious possibility because of the long hours, stress, and demanding work environment. Attorneys were another possibility, particularly considering how easily legal work can extend beyond normal business hours. Instead, healthcare practitioners appeared at the top of the rankings discussed during the episode. That led to a larger question: What is it about certain professions that might place additional pressure on a marriage? Healthcare, Stress, and Time Away From Home Healthcare professionals can face several factors that potentially create stress within relationships. Long and irregular shifts can mean significant time away from a spouse and family. The work itself can also be emotionally demanding. Bryan and Janice discuss how healthcare professionals may spend long hours alongside coworkers who understand experiences that can be difficult to explain to someone outside the profession. That combination of schedule, stress, shared experiences, and emotional exhaustion could potentially affect relationships—but the statistics alone don't establish why people in a particular profession divorce. And that's an important distinction throughout the episode. A correlation between profession and divorce doesn't necessarily mean the profession caused the divorce. Why Would Telemarketers Rank So High? One of the more surprising results was telemarketers, who ranked second among the professions discussed. Bryan had some firsthand perspective. Earlier in his career, he worked in oil and gas sales, making cold calls to potential investors. He remembers how mentally exhausting it could be to hear "no" repeatedly throughout the day. Cold-call sales can involve rejection after rejection, sometimes delivered impolitely. Eventually, that stress can follow someone home. A spouse may simply see that their partner spent the day making phone calls. The person doing the job, however, may have spent hours dealing with rejection and frustration. That difference in perspective illustrates one of the episode's recurring themes: Your spouse doesn't always experience—or fully understand—the pressures you face at work. Some of the Other Surprising Careers The list surprised Bryan and Janice. Massage therapists appeared among professions with higher rates, as did bus drivers and bus monitors. Other occupations discussed included practical nurses, casino workers, bartenders, press machine operators, psychiatric aides, metal furnace operators, and animal control officers. Meanwhile, several scientific, engineering, and highly technical professions appeared toward the lower end. Actuaries were among those with the lowest rates discussed during the episode, while atmospheric scientists, engineers, chemists, physicians, pharmacists, physical therapists, and surgeons also appeared toward the lower end of the rankings. The variety suggests there probably isn't one simple explanation connecting someone's occupation with divorce. When Your Career Comes Home With You The conversation eventually turns personal. As attorneys, Bryan and Janice understand what it's like for work to extend well beyond traditional office hours. Sometimes an urgent situation involving a case simply cannot wait until tomorrow. That creates a challenge many professionals will recognize. You may technically be home with your spouse or children, but mentally you're still at work. Bryan explains that sometimes handling the problem immediately lets him be more present afterward. Otherwise, he may spend the entire evening thinking about the issue instead of enjoying time with his family. Because Bryan and Janice are both attorneys, they also have an advantage: they understand the demands of each other's profession. Someone married to a person in an entirely different field may have a harder time understanding why that late-night email, phone call, deadline, or emergency feels so important. What About Family Law Attorneys? One profession Bryan and Janice were surprised not to see higher on the list was their own. Family law attorneys regularly spend their days immersed in other people's conflict. Divorce. Custody battles. Parental conflict. Financial disputes. High-conflict litigation. An attorney may move from one emotionally difficult client situation directly into another, compartmentalizing each problem before eventually going home. That raises an interesting question: How much of that emotional weight follows an attorney home? Bryan also sees another side. Spending every day dealing with serious marital conflict can provide perspective about disagreements inside your own marriage. After seeing couples spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and money fighting over issues during a divorce, an everyday disagreement at home can suddenly seem much less important. Sometimes the better response is simply to recognize the disagreement for what it is, work through it, and move forward. Divorce Statistics Don't Tell the Whole Story Bryan and Janice also make an important distinction between broad divorce statistics and what they experience at The Eggleston Law Firm. Their practice frequently involves high-conflict divorces and heavily litigated family law cases. That means the cases reaching their desks aren't necessarily representative of every divorce. Many couples divorce without experiencing the level of conflict Bryan and Janice regularly handle. Engineers provide an interesting example. Engineering professions appeared toward the lower end of the divorce rankings discussed during the episode. Yet Bryan and Janice have encountered engineers in high-conflict family law cases. Bryan notes that engineers can approach problems analytically and logically. During a divorce, however, one spouse may approach an issue primarily through logic while the other experiences it emotionally. Those different approaches can make conflict difficult to resolve. A profession could therefore have a relatively low divorce rate overall while some of the divorces that do occur still become highly contentious. Is Your Job Really the Problem? Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Episode 94 isn't that choosing the wrong profession will lead to divorce. It's that career demands can affect a relationship if couples aren't prepared to navigate them together. Long hours. Irregular schedules. Financial pressure. Workplace stress. Emotional exhaustion. Time away from home. Difficulty mentally disconnecting from work. And having a spouse who may not fully understand what happens during your workday. Those pressures can exist across almost every income level and profession. Statistics can identify interesting patterns, but they cannot predict what will happen inside an individual marriage. Understanding how work affects your relationship—and communicating about those pressures—may ultimately matter far more than where your profession happens to land on a list. And if your job appeared near the top? Don't panic just yet. Your career may be part of your life, but a statistic doesn't determine your marriage's future.
