Modelling Divorce Epidemic on Network

Abstract

Most couples entering into marriage are happy and do not anticipate divorce as an option. However, in reality, marriage is complicated, and many factors can lead to divorce. Using a compartmental model, we simulated and analyzed transmission network of divorce spread in continuous time on networks (that is, we analyzed married- divorced-separated model on networks). According to our findings, divorced individuals or nodes can cause many marriage nodes to become separated. Again there were few divorced nodes at the peak and at the end of the epidemic, but most marriages resulted in separation at the end of the epidemic. At the end of the epidemic, 80% of married nodes became separated nodes, which is a very serious problem. This suggests that divorce or separation is contagious and can spread quickly through indirect contact. This makes it vital to examine the effect of divorce to the population so as reduce the number of broken homes at the end of the divorce epidemic.

Keywords: compartmental model, complex systems, Marriage networks, divorce epidemics