Full Citation
Title: Money, Work, and Marital Stability: Assessing Change in the Gendered Determinants of Divorce
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2016
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Despite a large literature investigating how spouses earnings and division of labor relate to their risk of divorce, findings remain mixed and conclusions elusive. Core unresolved questions are (1) whether marital stability is primarily associated with the economic gains to marriage or with the gendered lens through which spouses earnings and employment are interpreted and (2) whether the determinants of marital stability have changed over time. Using data from the 1968 to 2013 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I consider how spouses division of labor, their overall financial resources, and a wifes ability to support herself in the event of divorce are associated with the risk of divorce, and how these associations have changed between couples married before and after 1975. Financial considerationswives economic independence and total household incomeare not predictive of divorce in either cohort. Time use, however, is associated with divorce risk in both cohorts. For marriages formed after 1975, husbands lack of full-time employment is associated with higher risk of divorce, but neither wives full-time employment nor wives share of household labor is associated with divorce risk. Expectations of wives homemaking may have eroded, but the husband breadwinner norm persists.
Url: http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/aug16asrfeature.pdf
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Killewald, Alexandra
Periodical (Full): American Sociological Reiew
Issue: 4
Volume: 81
Pages: 696-718
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Family and Marriage, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
Countries: