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Midlife Transitions
The Midlife Transitions Project
(2000-2004) examined how chronic economic and family adversity
experienced earlier in the life course affects the health of rural
adults at midlife. Data were collected in 2001 from parents who
participated in two earlier panel studies, the
Iowa Youth and Families
Project (IYFP) and the
Iowa Single Parent
Project (ISPP). Both panels were initiated in the wake of the farm crisis
of the late 1980s when many rural families were struggling despite
national prosperity. The results of the study provide evidence that
becoming divorced creates financial difficulties for single mothers
that are linked to adverse changes in self-reported health a decade
later. The study also demonstrates that divorce has short-term
effects of women's emotional well-being and long-term (10 year)
effects on reports of the number and severity of physical illnesses.
In the long-term, divorce affects women's well-being indirectly
through the stressful life events they are more prone to experience.
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