14 DAY TRIAL // It's nothing unusual for an actress to win an Academy Award and then get a divorce little time after, so could this be a curse on the Oscars, or a fact with a perfectly good scientific explanation?
A new study says that Oscar win for best actress increases the risk of divorce, and this was proven by a very long line of best actress winners that includes Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Halle Berry and Kate Winslet, who saw the end of their marriages not long after taking home their statuettes.
This new study was carried out by researchers at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and Carnegie Mellon University, who concluded that Oscar winners in the Best Actress category are at a higher risk of divorce than nominees who do not win.
On the other hand, Best Actor winners do not have this risk at all after an Oscar.
The research analyzed 751 nominees in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories of the Academy Awards, from to 2010.
According to the results, Best Actress winners have a 63% chance of going through a divorce, than non-winners.
Best Actress winners average marriage duration was 4.3 years, compared to that of non-winners, which was significantly higher, at 9.51 years.
As for men, the difference between Best Actor winners and Best Actor winners was not statistically significant, with an average marriage of 11.97 years for winners, and 12.66 years for non-winners.
Tiziana Casciaro, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Rotman School, said that “research has shown that, in the general population, gender differences have historically given roles with greater power and status to men and roles with lesser status and power to women.
“Studies have demonstrated that breaching this social norm within a marriage—for example, when a wife earns more than her husband—can strain the relationship,” she adds.
Casciaro co-authored the study with Colleen Stuart, a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, and Sue Moon, a PhD student at the Rotman School.
Stuart says that “it appears that even the marriages of Hollywood actresses at the top of their careers are not immune to the consequences of violating social norms that affect the wider population.
“Our results suggest that the sudden success reduces the longevity of their marriages.”
So the big question now is will Academy Award nominees Nicole Kidman and Annette Bening face a higher risk of a divorce if they win the Oscar for best actress next month?