Divorce Among Surgeons and Other Physicians in the United States

To compare divorce prevalence among surgeons with that of nonsurgeon physicians.

The demanding nature of a career in surgery uniquely challenges the social well-being of a surgeon; however, its impact on marital health has not yet been well described.

A cross-sectional study was conducted using publicly available US Census data from 2017 to 2021 to investigate the prevalence of divorce across different occupations. Survey respondents were divided into 2 groups, surgeons and nonsurgeon physicians, with the remaining Census participants as a control. All participants under the age of 18 were excluded to focus on the US adult population. The lifetime prevalence of divorce was measured across occupations, and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to identify factors that were independently associated with divorce. Secondarily, the occurrence of more than one marriage was used to supplement the understanding of marital health.

A total of 3171 surgeons and 51,660 nonsurgeon 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 with only 17.9% (9252/51,660) of nonsurgeon physicians, a 19% increase in risk of divorce [risk ratio (RR)=1.19; 95% CI, 1.11-1.28]. Both surgeons and nonsurgeon 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 the time of marriage, sex, race, income, hours worked per week, and the number of children in the household, with surgeons experiencing a 22% increased prevalence of divorce over nonsurgical 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 nonsurgeon physicians was concentrated among men (adjusted divorce prevalence: 22.6% of male surgeons vs 18.9% of male nonsurgeon 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 nonsurgeons; 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 nonsurgeons; adjusted OR 1.55, 95% CI, 1.06-2.26), with the effect not present in other measured subgroups.

Both surgeons and physicians have lower divorce prevalence than the general population. Surgeons exhibit higher prevalence of divorce compared with nonsurgeon physicians, with measured demographic and work characteristics insufficient to explain this difference.