Divorce Among Surgeons and Other Physicians in the United States

Objective: To compare divorce prevalence among surgeons with that of non-surgeon physicians. Summary Background Data: The demanding nature of a career in surgery uniquely challenges the social wellbeing of a surgeon; however, its impact on marital health has not yet been well described. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using publicly available U.S. Census data from 2017-2021 to investigate prevalence of divorce across different occupations. Survey respondents were divided into two groups, surgeons and non-surgeon physicians, with the remaining Census participants as a control. All participants under the age of 18 were excluded to focus on the U.S. adult population. Lifetime prevalence of divorce was measured across occupations and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to identify factors independently associated with divorce. Secondarily, the occurrence of more than one marriage was used to supplement understanding of marital health. Results: A total of 3,171 surgeons and 51,660 non-surgeon physicians were identified, with both groups similarly aged (51.6 and 50.2 y, respectively) and predominately male (82.9% and 61.9%, respectively). In unadjusted analysis, 21.3% (676/3,171) of surgeons had undergone a divorce compared to only 17.9% (9,252/51,660) of non-surgeon physicians, a 19% increase in risk of divorce (Risk ratio [RR]=1.19; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.11-1.28). Both surgeons and non-surgeon physicians were significantly less likely to report being divorced compared with the general population. The increased divorce prevalence among surgeons persisted in multivariable analysis that adjusted for age, age at time of marriage, sex, race, income, hours worked per week, and number of children in the household, with surgeons experiencing a 22% increased prevalence of divorce over non-surgical physicians (adjusted divorce prevalence of 21.8% vs. 18.7%, respectively; odds ratio [OR]=1.22; 95% CI, 1.09-1.35). In subgroup analysis, the finding of higher divorce prevalence for surgeons over non-surgeon physicians was concentrated among men (adjusted divorce prevalence: 22.6% of male surgeons vs. 18.9% of male non-surgeon physicians; adjusted OR 1.26, 95% CI, 1.11-1.42), White (adjusted divorce prevalence: 22.4% of white surgeons vs. 19.1% of white non-surgeons; adjusted OR 1.22, 95% CI, 1.09-1.38) and Asian surgeons (adjusted divorce prevalence: 12.0% of Asian surgeons vs. 8.1% of Asian non-surgeons; adjusted OR 1.55, 95% CI, 1.06-2.26), with the effect not present in other measured subgroups. Conclusions: Both surgeons and physicians have lower divorce prevalence than the general population. Surgeons exhibit higher prevalence of divorce compared with non-surgeon physicians, with measured demographic and work characteristics insufficient to explain this difference.