Crises in times of crisis. Employment vulnerability and couple instability during the Covid-19 pandemic in five European countries

Couple stability at younger ages is a precondition for family formation and childbearing. While there is evidence that the Covid-19 crisis, bringing about a major economic recession, has impacted on union formation in high income countries, micro-level studies on union dissolution are almost absent. Our explorative research provides descriptive evidence on how employment vulnerability (e.g., holding temporary occupations) is associated with different chances of (intending to) breaking up before the Covid-19 pandemic. The analyses have been conducted on survey data collected in April/May and October/November 2021, on quota samples of young individuals (aged 18 to 34) in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and UK. We find that employment vulnerability spills over into separation plans in times of economic recession, and in European regions reporting poorly performing labour markets (e.g., in terms of women employment and youth unemployment). On the contrary, among men with less vulnerable employment conditions, couple stability is less negatively affected by the recession, while they report higher chances to revise their pre-pandemic intention to break-up because of non-economic reasons.