Divorce factors: outcomes, adjustments and interventions: a three-part study on the Singapore experience
Creators: name: Chan-Leong, Jessica Lai Cheng
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: Singapore, a successful cosmopolitan city-state rooted in a diverse Asian heritage and culture, is witnessing a trend of gradual increase in the number of divorces in its population. Unfortunately, amidst this concern for the causes of divorce, little attention has been given to how divorcees in Singapore cope and adapt to such a stressful life-changing event. Even less attention has been given to whether divorced individuals have been able to make positive adjustments post-divorce and to grow through that experience. This research argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, divorce need not necessarily be “bad” and that post-divorce growth is a distinct possibility. Given that divorce in Singapore has shown a rising trend over the past few decades and that there will still be some broken marriages despite all the best efforts of social measures, counsellors and individuals. The researcher believes it is therefore necessary to explore the concept of a “good” divorce – one that could lead to the possibility of post-traumatic growth. Indeed, divorce cannot be seen as a single event and an aberration to societal norms. A non-judgemental understanding of the predisposing and precipitating factors of divorce; the indicators of problem marriages; the adjustment process; and finally the post-divorce reconciliation, is necessary in any comprehensive study of divorce in Singapore. While divorce is a personal decision and most divorcees are left alone to contend with its aftermath, it has implications on those around the divorced individuals. Hence, given that divorce has such wide ranging psychological, physical, and societal ramifications, a purely quantitative study of empirical data alone is unlikely to illuminate the understanding of the complex issues thrown up by the dynamic process of divorce. This research instead employs a dual quantitative-qualitative methodology to examine the multifaceted issues of divorce. The empirical work in this thesis has two aspects: the first involves exploring the divorcees’ perceived reasons for divorce, and categorising them into predisposing and precipitating factors; and the second ascertains their responses to the divorce and identifies the factors that impact the adjustment process and post-divorce growth. Such investigations were conducted through three distinct yet integrated studies. Study 1 adopted a quantitative method and comprised 136 divorced respondents who completed a self-administered structured questionnaire. Study 2, the main study of the research and a natural and complementary extension of Study 1, employed a qualitative approach. In applying a process of thematic analysis to the narratives from the semi-structured interviews with 19 divorcees, Study 2 was able to determine the underlying themes of their experiences. This thematic analysis, combined with a grounded theory approach and conducted in accordance with the six-phase thematic analysis framework developed by Braun &amp; Clarke (2006), yielded rich and authentic information on personal feelings, thoughts and opinions which could not be had from a quantitative survey alone. Study 3 comprised the narratives of 12 expert counsellors who synthesised their clients’ experiences with moderation and input from their own professional experience. The research concluded that although divorce is a traumatic experience, divorcees are usually able to adjust and eventually achieve post-divorce growth. From the research findings, it is also evident that further studies should be carried out to determine the early warning signals of a marriage in distress and apply appropriate intervention strategies that could avert the crisis from reaching the triggering point of divorce.