FAMILY, HEALTH, MARRIAGE, SEX & AGING
Getting married? Count to five. 5 year mark key in marriages
Couples who make it to their fifth year of marriage are less likely to break up, figures from Statistics Canada indicate. "Before the first anniversary of marriage, there was less than one divorce for every 1,000 marriages in 2002,'' the agency said Tuesday. After the first anniversary, the divorce rate was 4.3 per 1,000 marriages. That went up to 18 per 1,000 after the second anniversary, 25 after the third and peaked at 25.7 after the fourth. After that, the risk of divorce decreased slowly for each additional year of marriage. Statistics Canada also said that fewer couples untied the knot in 2002, and they did it at a later age. "Since 1986, the average age at divorce has increased by 4.1 years for men and by 4.2 years for women. In 2002, the average age at divorce was 43.1 for men and 40.5 for women.'' On the other hand, couples have been waiting longer to get married, the agency noted. And in 2001, the number of couples who got married declined sharply. After three consecutive years of growth, the number of divorces dropped in 2002 and 2001. "In 2002, a total of 70,155 couples had a divorce finalized, down 1.3 per cent from 2001 and 1.4 per cent from 2000. Both men and women waited longer before divorce.
"On
average, men who divorced in 2002 were married at the age of 28.9, while women
had married at the age of 26.3. "Between 1986 and 2002, the average age of
marriage for individuals who divorced rose by 2.9 years for both men and
women.'' The number of divorces in 2002 was 11.2 per cent below the most
recent high of about 79,000 in 1992 and 27.1 per cent below the all-time peak
of about 96,000 divorces in 1987, the agency said. Couples in Newfoundland and
Labrador were least likely to divorce, with 2002 figures showing 21.8 per cent
of marriages expected to end within 30 years of marriage. In contrast, 47.6
per cent of couples in Quebec were expected to divorce within this time. In
Alberta, 41.9 per cent; British Columbia, 41 per cent; Yukon, 43.4 per cent
also experienced divorce rates higher than the national average of 37.6 per
cent. For couples divorcing in 2002, the average marriage lasted 14.2 years,
up 0.2 years from 2000 and 1.4 years from 1993. "The number of divorces fell
in nine of the provinces and territories between 2000 and 2002, particularly
in New Brunswick, where the decline was 14.9 per cent, and in Saskatchewan,
where it was 10.7 per cent. Divorces were up in Alberta, British Columbia,
Ontario and Yukon.'
Creativity, some scientists say, may play an important role in healthy aging.
The singers' average age is 80; the youngest is 65 and the oldest 96.
It's an odd medical meeting that features Rogers & Hammerstein and brilliantly coloured paintings rather than, say, X-rays. What does belting out Oklahoma or putting oil to canvas have to do with brain health? Perhaps a lot, when the singers are active 70- and 80-year-olds and the painters are in the throes of dementia. Creativity, some scientists say, may play an important role in healthy aging; conversely, the ill can shed extraordinary light on just how the brain perceives art. "Even though our brains age, it doesn't diminish our ability to create," says Dr. Bruce Miller, a behavioural neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco. The big question, as arts projects become more common in retirement and nursing homes, is whether tapping elders' creativity truly brings them physical health benefits as well as joy. And if so, what works best? The National Institute on Aging and Society for the Arts in Healthcare brought scientists and artists together last month to galvanize interest in research on creativity to find out. Mental decline once was thought inevitable with aging. Scientists now know that's not true, and the brain continually rewires and adapts itself even in old age. Even dementia "doesn't wipe out all aspects of creativity," says Miller. Indeed, some forms release astounding abilities to draw by people who never did so before, providing important clues to where the brain houses creative abilities.
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