Date: 2018
Type: Article
Why does women's education stabilize marriages? : the role of marital attraction and barriers to divorce
Demographic research, 2018, Vol. 38, pp. 1241-1276
BOERTIEN, Diederik, HARKONEN, Juho, Why does women's education stabilize marriages? : the role of marital attraction and barriers to divorce, Demographic research, 2018, Vol. 38, pp. 1241-1276
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/59920
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
Despite widespread attention paid to the negative correlation between female education and divorce, we lack an explanation for it. In this study we use social exchange theory to assess two broad groups of explanations. According to the 'marital attraction' explanation, educated women's marriages have higher marital quality and marital satisfaction. According to the 'barriers to divorce' explanation, educated women's marriages include factors that raise the cost of divorcing. Many previous studies have referred to variants of the former explanation, whereas the latter has been less prominent. Our objective is to investigate the explanatory power of these two explanations. We use discrete-time event history models to document the educational gradient of divorce from first marriages using the British Household Panel Survey (N = 1,263) for the years 1996-2009. We subsequently perform a mediation analysis to explain the educational gradient in divorce and a path analysis to distinguish which factors shape marital attraction and barriers to divorce. Female education is positively related to marital stability, but this association is only partly explained by educational differences in marital satisfaction and variables that shape attractions. Variables interpreted as affecting barriers to divorce, such as home ownership and having divorced parents, provide an at least equally important explanation of the educational gradient in divorce. This paper shows that the negative female educational gradient of divorce is shaped not only by educational differences in marital attraction, but also by differences in barriers to divorce.
Additional information:
Date published: 05 April 2018
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/59920
Full-text via DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2018.38.41
ISSN: 1435-9871
Publisher: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Keyword(s): Socioeconomic-status Parental divorce Family dynamics United-States Dissolution Gradient Cohabitation Employment Gender Trends
Sponsorship and Funder information:
Spanish Ministry of Education [IJCI-2015-23267] Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research [2010-0831] Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland [293103]