eli5 Why do we compared married vs divorce for childhood outcomes, shouldn’t the comparison be those who were going to divorce vs those who were divorced?

Question

Seems kinda obvious a happy marriage is going to be better than a divorce. Shouldn’t the comparison be between an unhappy marriage and a divorce?

In: Other

Answer 1

Married and divorced are easy black and white legally confirmed statuses. This is info you can get simply by looking at tax records or a general census. Unhappy marriage is not an easy thing to define or record. There is no “unhappily married” box to tick off on a tax return. One spouse may be happy, but the other isn’t, so is that a happy or unhappy marriage?