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Labor and Love: Wives' Employment and Divorce Risk in its Socio-political Context

Author

Listed:
  • Cooke, Lynn P.
  • Erola, Jani
  • Evertsson, Marie
  • Gähler, Michael
  • Härkönen, Juho
  • Hewitt, Belinda
  • Jalovaara, Marika
  • Kan, Man-Yee
  • Lyngstad, Torkild Hovde
  • Mencarini, Letizia
  • Mignot, Jean-Francois
  • Mortelmans, Dimitri
  • Poortman, Anne-Rigt
  • Schmitt, Christian
  • Trappe, Heike

Abstract

We theorize how social policy affects marital stability vis-à-vis macro and micro effects of wives' employment on divorce risk in 11 Western countries. Correlations among 1990s aggregate data on marriage, divorce, and wives' employment rates, along with attitudinal and social policy information, seem to support specialization hypotheses that divorce rates are higher where more wives are employed and where policies support that employment. This is an ecological fallacy, however, because of the nature of the changes in specific countries. At the micro level, we harmonize national longitudinal data on the most recent cohort of wives marrying for the first time and find that the stabilizing effects of a gendered division of labor have ebbed. In the United States with its lack of policy support, a wife's employment still significantly increases the risk of divorce. A wife's employment has no significant effect on divorce risk in Australia, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In Finland, Norway, and Sweden, wives' employment predicts a significantly lower risk of divorce when compared with wives who are out of the labor force. The results indicate that greater policy support for equality reduces and may even reverse the relative divorce risk associated with a wife's employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Cooke, Lynn P. & Erola, Jani & Evertsson, Marie & Gähler, Michael & Härkönen, Juho & Hewitt, Belinda & Jalovaara, Marika & Kan, Man-Yee & Lyngstad, Torkild Hovde & Mencarini, Letizia & Mignot, Jean-Fr, 2013. "Labor and Love: Wives' Employment and Divorce Risk in its Socio-political Context," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 482-509.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:126215
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    Cited by:

    1. Marika Jalovaara & Anette Fasang, 2015. "Are there gender differences in family trajectories by education in Finland?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(44), pages 1241-1256.
    2. Letizia Mencarini & Daniele Vignoli, 2014. "Women’s employment makes unions more stable, if the male partners contribute to the unpaid household work," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2014_06, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    3. Daniele Vignoli & Anna Matysiak & Marta Styrc & Valentina Tocchioni, 2018. "The positive impact of women’s employment on divorce: Context, selection, or anticipation?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(37), pages 1059-1110.
    4. Jalovaara, Marika & Fasang, Anette Eva, 2015. "Are there gender differences in family trajectories by education in Finland?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 33, pages 1241-1256.
    5. Dean R. Lillard, 2021. "Cross‐National Research: Realised and Potential Contributions," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 54(4), pages 542-553, December.
    6. Ausra Maslauskaite & Aiva Jasilioniene & Domantas Jasilionis & Vladislava Stankuniene & Vladimir Shkolnikov, 2015. "Socio-economic determinants of divorce in Lithuania: Evidence from register-based census-linked data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(30), pages 871-908.
    7. Letizia Mencarini & Daniele Vignoli, 2014. "Woman's employment makes unions more stable, if the partner contributes to the unpaid work," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 377, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    8. Hübgen, Sabine, 2020. "Understanding lone mothers’ high poverty in Germany: Disentangling composition effects and effects of lone motherhood," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 44, pages 1-1.

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