Marriage and divorce in Belgium. The influence of professional, educational and financial resources...

Marriage and Divorce in Belgium:The Influence of Professional, Financialand Educational Resources on the Risk

for Marriage Dissolution

Peter RaeymaeckersLaurent Snoeckx

Dimitri MortelmansSarah Van Ourti

ABSTRACT. While the influence of resources on marriage dissolutionhas often been examined separately, little empirical research is gatheredon the effect of couple-level professional, educational, and financial re-sources. In this article, Rogers’ four-part theoretical resources frame-work will be used to examine the influence of professional, educational,and financial resources on the risk for marriage dissolution. Our analysissuggests that the divorce risk decreases when couples share an equallevel of resources or household tasks, as stated by the role collaborationand economic partnership model. The risk for marriage dissolution de-

Peter Raeymaeckers, MA, is Researcher, Panel Survey of Belgian Households(University of Antwerp) at the Faculty of Sociology, Campus Drie Eiken, Univer-siteitsplein, 2610 Wilrijk, Antwerp, Belgium B2160.

Laurent Snoeckx, MA, is doing research at the Department of Sociology, ResearchGroup PSBH, at the University of Antwerp, Faculty of Sociology, Campus DrieEiken, Universiteitsplein, 2610 Wilrijk, Antwerp, Belgium B2160. (E-mail: [email protected]).

Dimitri Mortelmans, PhD, is Sociologist at the University ofAntwerp. He is head ofthe Panel Survey of Belgian Households (PSBH), Faculty of Sociology, Campus DrieEiken, Universiteitsplein, 2610 Wilrijk, Antwerp, Belgium B2160. (E-mail: [email protected]).

Sarah Van Ourti, PhD, is on the faculty of Communication, Lange Leemstraat J12,Antwerp, Belgium 2018.

Address correspondence to: Peter Raeymaeckers at the above address.

Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, Vol. 46(1/2) 2006Available online at http://jdr.haworthpress.com

© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J087v46n01_09 151

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creases when the two spouses work, have comparable earnings, andshare the household tasks equally. [Article copies available for a fee fromThe Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:<[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Divorce, professional, educational, and financial re-sources, on divorce, risk for divorce

INTRODUCTION

The international literature concerning divorce is characterized by alarge amount of inconsistent findings. Many authors have written aboutthe causes of divorce, using different kinds of data and variables to clar-ify the social reality, which leads to the dissolution of a marriage.

In previous research on the influence of professional, educational,and financial resources on divorce, these are often regarded as personalcapital. Thereby, the relative dimension of the spouses’ proportionalcontribution in resource(s) is often underemphasized. As stated in thefollowing paragraphs, many authors consider the divorce risk with a fo-cal point on the financial resources of the couple (Heidemann et al.,1998; Greenstein, 1990), on the professional situation of the wife(Kitson et al., 1985:270; Tzeng and Mare, 1995; Dronkers, 2003), or onthe educational level of the individual (Poortman and Kalmijn, 2002;Kalmijn, de Graaf, 2003; South and Spitze, 1986). Rogers’ (2004) re-sources framework is very useful for integrating these varying findings.Her framework allows us to examine different points of view concern-ing the determinants of divorce, and makes it possible to focus on the ef-fect of similarities or differences among the professional, educational,and financial resources of the couple.

The four heuristic models presented by Rogers (2004) focus on thewife’s financial resources, and are defined as follows: economic independ-ence, equal dependence, role collaboration, and economic partnershipmodel. The economic independence model emphasizes the specializationtheory of Becker (1981) and stresses the importance of the male-bread-winner model. According to this perspective, the divorce risk decreaseswhen the wife has lower financial resources than that of the husband.The equal dependence model is also based on a specialization argumentbut emphasizes that the divorce risk decreases, not only when the hus-

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band has higher resources than of the wife, but also when the wife hashigher resources in comparison with the husband. This means that whenthe contribution of the two spouses to the total household income is un-equal, marriage dissolution becomes less likely. The role collaborationperspective stresses the situation where both spouses share the sameamount of resources: When both wife and husband earn an equalamount of financial resources, the divorce proneness decreases. Theeconomic partnership perspective states that a decreasing risk for mar-riage dissolution is predicted when both spouses earn a high amount offinancial resources.

Whereas Rogers used these models to examine the influence offinancial resources, we expand this framework to the financial, educa-tional, and professional capital of the couple and develop a clear viewon how these resources influence a possible dissolution of a marriage.The added value of this focus lies within the theoretical consideration ofdifferent kinds of resources in the same model, and the longitudinal em-pirical use of couple-level data on income, employment, and education.Using the Panel Study of Belgian Households we will deal with spouses’relative share in the different resources, and emphasize the differencesor similarities between the wife’s and husband’s professional, educa-tional, and financial resources as important factors for the risk on di-vorce.

LITERATURE OVERVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

Economic Independence

The economic independence perspective suggests that the wife’s re-sources are positively correlated with divorce risk. This means thatwhen the female member of the dyad acquires more educational, pro-fessional, or financial resources, she is more likely to divorce (Rogers,2004:60). In the line of the economic independence perspective, we canstate that the divorce risk increases not only when the wife has high fi-nancial resources, but also when she has higher professional and educa-tional resources in comparison with her husband.

Discussing the influence of professional resources, the economicindependence model is probably the most commonly used frameworkto analyse the divorce risks and goes back to the theory of Gary S.Becker (1977, 1981). It is difficult to overestimate the importance ofBecker’s specialization theory. Almost every article remotely touching

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labour-related or educational risk factors mentions his groundbreakingtheory on the economics of marriage. Just like Parsons (1956), whostresses the importance to consider the family as a system with differentfunctions, Becker suggests that marriage is a union with gains and costs,and that each partner brings his marriage-specific capital into the mar-riage, or develops it further throughout the marriage. The central notionis that each spouse gains the most from the marital union, by specializ-ing in different task spheres, either in skills that raise market productiv-ity, or in skills that augment non-market productivity (Becker et al.,1977).

According to the independence perspective, the high divorce rates ofthe last century are caused by the increasing female employment rates.The presence of new and more possibilities for women to participate onthe labour market made it possible to acquire an economically autono-mous position in the family (Edwards, 2001), and made women less de-pendent on their husband’s income (Fokkema and Liefbroer, 2000).Many authors unravel the skyrocketing divorce rates by stating that anincreasing independency has cleared the path for more opportunities forwomen to break up their marriage (Cherlin, 1996; Greenstein, 1995;Wagner and Weiss, 2004; Kalmijn, de Graaf and Poortman, 2004).

Like employment, education can be considered as a specific featureof a person’s human capital. Concerning the influence of education ondivorce, many authors found positive relations with divorce (Poortmanand Kalmijn, 2002; Kalmijn and de Graaf, 2003; South and Spitze,1986). Kitson et al. (1986) state that even though the risk for marriagedissolution is still high among those with lower education levels, the di-vorce rate increases more for those with higher education. An importantdimension that needs some closer consideration is the relative educationof husbands and wives. A recurrent finding from several studies is theasymmetrical effect of education on divorce. If the wife has enjoyed ahigher education than her husband, the marriage is significantly morelikely to end in divorce (Kalmijn, 2004; Janssen and de Graaf, 2000).These last findings confirm the specialization theory of Becker. Whenthe wife has a lower education degree in comparison with the husband,the divorce risk lowers.

The independence model is used by many authors to explain the in-fluence of financial resources on the divorce risk. Here also the theoryof Becker is highly referenced. Scholars have found empirical evidencethat when women’s financial resources exceed those of the husband’s,the divorce risk increases (Rogers, 1996; Cherlin, 1996; Wagner andWeiss, 2004).


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Summarizing the above, according to Rogers’ (2004) this model pre-dicts a positive divorce risk when the wife has higher financial re-sources in comparison with the husband. It seems that the independencemodel is inspired by Becker’s (1981) theory where he states that the di-vorce risk lowers when the wife is specialized in the nonmarket taskslike doing the household, and taking care of the children. Thus, accord-ing to this perspective, when the wife has less educational, financial,and professional resources, and when she spends more time in thehousehold, marriage dissolution becomes less likely. We will test theeconomic independence model by four hypotheses:

H1a: If the wife works less than the husband does, the divorce risklowers.

H1b: If the wife acquired a schooling degree lower than that of thehusband’s, the divorce risk lowers.

H1c: If the wife earns less than the husband does, the divorce risklowers.

H1d: If the wife exercises more household tasks than the husbanddoes, the divorce risk lowers.

Equal Dependence

The equal dependence model states that when the wife’s economiccontributions are similar to those of their husband, the divorce risk in-creases (Rogers, 2004). In her article, Rogers finds the most empiricalevidence for this model and states that: “Wives’ resources were associ-ated with divorce in an inverted U-shaped fashion, with the highest riskof divorce occurring when wives contributed between 50% and 60% ofthe total family resources” (Rogers, 2004:71). Similar to the economicindependence model, we expand the equal dependence model to the in-fluence of professional and educational resources.

The importance of the equal dependence model is stressed by Nock(1995) and Ono (1998). These authors state that the divorce risk corre-lates with the economic interdependence of spouses; whereas the inde-pendence model suggests that only the independent situation of womenis important, the equal dependence model argues that the influence ofinequalities of resources between the husband and wife is symmetrical.Thus, the divorce risks decrease not only when the wife is dependent onthe husband’s resources, but also when men are dependent on the wife’smarket characteristics such as employment, education, and finances.


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High divorce risks appear in those cases where husband and wife havesimilar educational, professional, and financial resources.

Concerning the effect of financial resources, Rogers (2004) finds em-pirical evidence that confirms this hypothesis: The highest divorce risksoccur when wives contribute between 50% or 60% of the total familyincome. Comparable findings are made by Heckert, Nowak, and Snyder(1998). These authors found empirical evidence that union disruptionappears less in cases where the female member of the dyad contributes75% or more to the total family income.

In the case of the employment situation, research from Tzeng andMare (1995) confirms the equal dependence hypothesis, and shows thatthe divorce proneness results from the difference in working time be-tween men and women. When the gap between the weeks worked ofhusband and wife decreases, the couple shows a higher divorce risk.

Analyzing the influence of educational attainment, Nock (1995)finds empirical evidence for the equal dependence model. Althoughmost authors suggest that especially the husband’s high educationallevel decreases the divorce risks, the equal dependence model makes itpossible to assume that a decreasing divorce risk also appears when thehusband has a low, and the wife a high educational attainment.

Unlike the economic independence model, the equal dependenceframework states that the influence of financial, professional, and edu-cational resources is symmetrical; in case either husband or wife is de-pendent on the partner’s resources, the divorce risk decreases. Thisequal dependence framework will be examined by the followinghypotheses:

H2a: If the professional statuses of the spouses are unequal, the di-vorce risk lowers.

H2b: If the educational degrees of the spouses are unequal, the di-vorce risk lowers.

H2c: If the financial resources of the spouses are unequal, the di-vorce risk lowers.

H2d: If the household task participation of the spouses is unequal,the divorce risk lowers.

Role Collaboration

In contrast to the previous model, the role collaboration frame sug-gests a decreasing divorce risk when similarity appears between the


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economic contribution of both man and woman (Rogers, 2004). Thismeans that the dyad is exposed to a low chance of dissolution when bothmembers are employed or unemployed, have equal educational levels,and have access to similar financial resources.

This hypothesis can be linked to the homogamy argument. One of thereasons, relational homogamy is thought as being beneficial for stablemarriages, is that a likeness of the partners–on socio-demographic char-acteristics as well as on personality levels–serves as a common back-ground, and that homogamous partners are likely to share mutual valuesand interests. Homogamy facilitates communication, empathy, and theestablishment and maintenance of social networks (Kurdek and Schmitt,1987). Not only do homogeneous partners’ preferences accord with oneanother, the couple can also count on greater social support (Janssenand de Graaf, 2000). Increasing heterogeneity therefore, coincides withdeclining marital happiness (Amato, 2003). Evidence is found that bothreligious and age heterogamy, as well as heterogamy in personalitytraits, augment the divorce risk significantly (Heaton, 1984; Janssen andde Graaf, 2000; Bumpass and Sweet, 1972).

In the first paragraph, we have stated that the increase of workingwomen is an important divorce risk factor. However, some recent stud-ies show that female employment has a stabilising effect on the union(Brines and Joyner, 1999; Greenstein, 1990). Adopting the collabora-tion framework to the influence of the couple-level educational re-sources on the divorce rate, one can state that when two spouses havethe same educational background, they show low divorce rates. Thus,not only the level of education is significant, but the similarity in educa-tion also has a negative influence on marriage dissolution. Or, in thewords of Lyngstad: “Persons may value marriages with individuals,with the same educational attainment as themselves, higher, than mar-riages with a person that has the highest possible educational attain-ment” (Lyngstad, 2004:126). Regarding the influence of financialresources, we can state in accordance with Risman et al. (1998) that thewives’ economic resources made it possible to rearrange a more equita-ble based marriage.

An important condition that can explain the findings above is the waythe internal household tasks are divided. More specifically, the effect ofworking outdoor is dependent on the role that the husband plays in theeveryday division of the household tasks (Greenstein, 1995; Rogers,1996; Kluwer et al., 1997; Amato et al., 2003). Greenstein (1995) andKalmijn et al. (2004) state that when husbands tend not to share equallyin the division of household labour, especially with women with nontra-


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ditional values, about the everyday tasks division, are characterized by ahigher divorce proneness. These findings prove that when a marriageunion is based on professional, educational, and financial homogamy,an equal division of household tasks causes a stabilizing effect on themarriage. Therefore, the role collaboration model tends to agree withOppenheimer (1994, 1997) who states that the view of marriage assolely an economic institution, with an emphasis on specialized genderroles, is insufficient. This author criticizes Becker by assuming thatwhen spouses specialize in different task spheres, the nuclear couple isat risk for negative events: “In Becker’s model, critical specialized per-sonnel never get sick or die (at least not at inconvenient times), makingthem temporarily or permanently unable to fulfil vital functions. Thehusband father never loses his job, thereby depriving his family of itssole source of earnings or of other employment-related benefits such ashealth insurance” (Oppenheimer, 1994:318).

The role collaboration model will be tested by means of four hypoth-eses:

H3a: When spouses spend an equal time at work, the divorce riskdecreases.

H3b: When spouses have an equal educational attainment, the di-vorce risk decreases.

H3c: When spouses have access to equal financial resources, thedivorce risk decreases.

H3d: When spouses share an equal division of household tasks,the divorce risk decreases.

Economic Partnership

The theoretical foundation of the economic partnership model is builtupon the insight that difficulties caused by insufficient market relatedresources, such as unemployment and a lack of education attainment orfinances, are regarded as an important factor causing marital instability(Conger et al., 1990; Greenstein, 1990). The central idea of this perspec-tive is that the resource contributions of both man and woman result in adecreasing divorce risk; when they diminish, the economic stress, cou-ples confronted with economic problems, may experience (Rogers,2004). Similar to the three models mentioned above, we can expand the


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economic partnership perspective to financial, educational, and profes-sional resources.

In contrast with the economic independence perspective, accordingto the partnership perspective, female employment has a negative influ-ence on marriage dissolution (Kitson et al., 1985; Tzeng and Mare,1995; Dronkers, 2003). The wife’s additional income causes an increas-ing of marital-specific capitals such as home ownership, durable goods,children, and market and nonmarket skills, and decreases the gains forboth wife and husband, to dissolute their marriage (Greenstein, 1990).

The influence of education has a similar interpretation. In terms ofBecker (1977), in situations where the wife and husband have a high ed-ucational attainment, the degree of specialization will be low. Accord-ing to Lyngstad (2004), however, in those cases where both the man andwoman acquired a high educational level, divorce risk could be low be-cause of the economic advantages that highly educated couples have ac-cess to. At the same time, these couples have too much to lose fromdivorce, and therefore, are less inclined to break up their marriage.

According to the economic partnership perspective, the influence offinancial resources can be interpreted as follows: The more resources acouple has access to, the more the divorce risk decreases (Heidemannet al., 1998; Greenstein, 1990).

One important feature we have to add to the economic partnershipframework is the way the couple divides the household tasks. It is veryreasonable to assume that highly educated women also have demandingjobs and an equal amount of workload. From that point of view, the eco-nomic partnership model forms a variant on the role collaborationmodel, and also tends to agree with Oppenheimer’s opinion that there’smore in a marriage than solely an economic dimension. Like in the pre-vious paragraph, we can state that the division of household tasks is animportant feature to add to the economic partnership model. Indeed,also in this conceptual model, fixed partner roles concerning householdtask division will increase the risk of marriage dissolution.

Comparing the economic partnership framework with the role col-laboration model, an important difference is that the former shows anasymmetric effect concerning the resources of the couple, and the lattera symmetric one. According to the economic partnership, only the cou-ples where both members have access to high level of resources show alow divorce risk. On the contrary, the role collaboration model suggestsa symmetric feature, by assuming that low possibilities for union disso-lution appear in case both members have a high or low resource attain-ment. Despite the difference between these two models, we can assume


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that both frameworks are applicable to Oppenheimer’s notion of thefamily as a collaborative household. In terms of Oppenheimer (1994,1997), we can say that especially when the two spouses are involved inan economic partnership with high resources, and both husband andwife taking care of the household tasks, the dyad forms a collaborativebarrier against the negative influence of sudden risk events such as sick-ness, death, and unemployment. In other words, Oppenheimer empha-sizes that a decreasing divorce risk appears where both spouses sharethe same level of professional, educational, and financial resources, andwhere they divide the household tasks equally.

The economic partnership model will be analysed by four hypotheses:

H4a: When both spouses work, the divorce risk decreases.H4b: When both spouses have a high educational degree, the di-vorce risk decreases.H4c: When both spouses have high financial resources, the di-vorce risk decreases.H4d: When husband and wife exercise an equal share in householdtasks, the divorce risk decreases.

Four Models, Two Dimensions

In the paragraphs above, we discussed four different models intro-duced by Rogers to explain the influence of the spouses’ relative re-sources on the divorce risk. Whereas Rogers limited her conceptualframework to the influence of financial resources, we expand the radiusof these models to the effect of educational attainment, professional sta-tus and financial resources. Each framework highlights a differentstructure in the division of the resources and their effect on marriage in-stability. An additional feature we wanted to add to the four models isthe division of the household tasks. In the paragraphs above, we assumethat the way the household tasks are divided plays an important role inthe weal and woe of the family.

Observing the four models, at the theoretical level, we identify an im-portant contradiction in the view between Becker and Oppenheimer, con-cerning divorce risks. With his specialization model, Becker assumes thata stable marriage consists of husband and wife specializing in differenttasks spheres. An important critique on this view is given by Oppen-heimer; she claims that not specialization, but collaboration avoids union


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disruption. Oppenheimer’s theory stresses the importance of both hus-band and wife involving in market and nonmarket related tasks.

Classifying the framework of Rogers into the contradiction betweenspecialization and collaboration, we can state that the equal dependenceand the economic independence model support the specialization idea,and the role collaboration and economic partnership model point to theimportance of a collaborative framework in the view of Oppenheimer.

Although Becker’s theory supports the economic independence mo-del characterized by fixed role patterns–where the wife takes care ofhousehold tasks and the husband is responsible for the breadwinnerrole–we can state that the specialization argument also finds ground inthe equal dependence perspective. The latter model stresses the impor-tance of dependency between woman and man. One might say that theequal dependence model is symmetric because of the notion that stabil-ity in marriage results from a husband dependent on the wife or viceversa. The economic independence model, on the other hand, is asym-metric because only in case the wife is dependent on the husband, thedivorce risk lowers.

The role collaboration and the economic partnership perspective sup-port the idea of Oppenheimer. Both models stress the importance of acollaborative family without fixed role patterns. In this view, the hus-band and wife are not involved in separate tasks spheres, but supporteach other in the market and the non-market tasks. This means that boththe husband and wife increase the market productivity of a family andtake care of the household tasks. Indeed, the role collaboration and eco-nomic partnership model state role patterns are unfixed. Concerning thedivision of household tasks, these unfixed role patterns implicate anequal share between husband and wife.

There is, however, one important difference to mention between thetwo models. The role collaboration model doesn’t make a difference be-tween similarities in low, mediocre, or high resources. According to thisperspective, a marriage stabilizes as long as husband and wife have thesame professional status, educational attainment, and earn the sameamount of financial resources. The economic partnership model, how-ever, stresses the importance of high resources. Only in case both hus-band and wife work, have a high educational attainment and earn a highamount of money, the divorce risks lowers. Thereby, the economic part-nership model can be conceptualized as an asymmetric version of therole collaboration model.


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METHOD AND DATA

Method

The data used for our research, comes from the Panel Study of Bel-gian Households (PSBH). In the panel study, individuals, as well astheir households and children, were followed from 1992 until 2001.This provides us with eleven years of information on a representativesample of the Belgian population, covering a broad range of socio-eco-nomic topics, as well as themes relating to family sociology. The pro-spective structure of the data set surpasses the main share of biases thataccompany retrospective and in particular cross-sectional studies.

The most appropriate method to turn to is survival analysis, in par-ticular Cox’ proportional hazards technique. For one, the longitudinaldata at our disposal are very suitable for this technique. Secondly, it al-lows us to estimate the risk and influencing factors, through means ofclear-cut parameters that are fairly straightforward to interpret. More-over, Cox regression models can handle discrete-time or tied data,as well as time-constant and time-varying explanatory variables (Alli-son, 1984, 2002; Kleinbaum, 1996). It is a technique that assesses theeffect of explanatory variables on survival or event times. In concreto,for our work, we will estimate the effect of several external vari-ables–described at length in the next section–on the occurrence andtiming of divorce. Yet another way of formulating what’s preciselyscrutinized, is the contribution of diverse factors on the divorce risk,expressed as the number of events per interval of time, for example,the divorce rate.

The data structure needed to perform survival or event-history analy-sis is called a person-period file. Due to the yearly data collection, thediscrete-time unit is the year or wave of the panel study. The startingpoint for our analysis is the year of the first survey wave (1992), beingequal for all subjects. The basic unit of the file is the individual, morespecifically the individual that was married at the time of entering thepanel study in wave 1. While creating the file an additional selection cri-terion was that, the marriage was not a second or higher-order marriage,taking into account the specific divorce dynamics for this subgroup. Forour time-dependent covariates, we use the lagged covariates, as to ac-count for the correct causal ordering. Hence, for these covariates wetake the value of x t-1, t being the event hazard time, thus including a oneyear lag.


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Data

The dependent variable is composed of the event and the number ofyears the individual was in the sample until the event occurred. Theevent is a legal divorce or a separation, and takes on value “1”’ if it oc-curs and “0” for the censored individuals, those who remain married orleave the panel study prematurely. The timing variable refers to thewave in which the divorce occurred or the censoring wave, and rangesfrom 1 to 11.

The control variables are either time-varying or time-constant. The timedependent variables are Duration of marriage (in years), duration squared,and number of children. The other time constant variables are age, sex, ageat marriage, premarital cohabitation, nationality, and region.

The explanatory variables are either time-constant or time-varying.We start with the description of the time-varying resource indicators.The first one is a comparative couple-variable on educational resourcesthat contains five categories, indicating whether husband and wife sharea low, medial, or high educational level, or whether the wife has ahigher or lower educational level. The reduction of a fairly complexvariable into five categories has the advantage of straightforward inter-pretation and that it overcomes the inter-wave answer code differen-tials. The drawback of the loss of detailed information, however, isinevitable.

Concerning the employment-situation, we created a comparativecouple-variable, analogous to the educational variable. This variableconsists of four categories: Whether both have jobs, the wife works andthe husband doesn’t, the wife doesn’t work and the husband does, orwhether both are unemployed.

We also created a couple-variable on income that contains three cate-gories: Whether husband and wife earn the same income, or whether thewife earns a lower or higher income than her husband. The constructionof this variable however, causes a great loss of information. Indeed,solely earned income has been taken into account by using an incomescale-variable with six categories. This variable is based on a questionwhere respondents could indicate one category out of eighteen, and an-other where an amount of money could be entered.

Information on monthly household income is included as a categori-cal variable, with two categories, ranging from “less than € 2500” to“more than € 2500” a month (given a median value of € 2500). The rea-son that we did not enter household income at the interval level is thatrespondents were given the choice of either entering an amount of


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money, or indicating a category. In order to retain as much informationas possible, we recoded both into one categorical variable. The house-hold income variable is solely used to test the economic partnershipmodel. Indeed, in this perspective, it only matters how much income acouple has access to. Moreover, the household income is more accuratethan the individual income variable, and thereby more preferable.

Where great shares of the couples are dual earners, measuring work-load merely through paid employment does not adequately describe theactual workload. Therefore, we created a husband-wife comparative in-dicator containing information on whether partners have an equal sharein the household tasks, and whether the wife takes on more or lesshousehold tasks than her husband. However, we have to emphasize thatthis indicator is based on subjective answers about a respondent’s sharein household tasks. Respondents were asked to fill in how much timethey spend at doing different household tasks, for example, cooking,cleaning, doing laundry, and ironing. The possible answers range fromnever to always.

RESULTS

General Features

Our basic risk set contains 5314 initially married individuals, whowere married between 1992 and 2002. Each subject at risk was followedthroughout the full length of the panel study, where possible, in case ofattrition, the timing variable got the score of the wave of fall-out, and theevent was coded zero. A total of 184 individuals broke up their marriagethrough the course of the follow up, meaning that a total of 5314, or96% were censored. The small amount of divorcees in the sample size isalso observed for other European panel studies (Burkhauser et al., 1991;Gähler, 1998; Jarvis and Jenkins, 1999; Poortman, 2000).

In an attempt to find some Belgian reference material, we looked upsome National Register data. In 1992, the same year as the start of thepanel, a total of 5,013,968 of the Belgian population was married. In2001, a total number of 624,211 were divorced. Proportionally, onecould state that this is a divorce rate of 12.45%, three times the divorcerate in our sample. However, this is a fraction of two transversal rates attwo different times, and in reality, the constellation of the original groupof the married has changed. This is not the case in our panel study,where the same group of people was followed.


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A downside to panel studies is the problem of attrition, especiallywhen this is selective, and certain subgroups are more inclined to dropout. To meet some of these problems, an additional set of respondentswere integrated in the panel study from wave 7 (1998) until the end.However, it is crucial for our research design to follow the same subset.We are aware of the extreme amount of censoring. However, when theweighting indicators were composed, civil status did not come out as asignificant component, so we have reason to believe the attrition wasnot due to an overrepresentation of divorcees. On a final note, we areconfident that with the use of Cox’s proportional hazards models, thereare still important things to say about those who experienced a divorce.Observing the model parameters of the five models, we see that all ofthem are significant. The Wald, Score, and Loglikelihood tests aresignificant at the 0.0001 level.

Economic Independence Model

Additional to the control variables, the first model contains the eco-nomic independence variables (Table 1). This model consists of thevariables expressing the situation where the wife has less professional,educational, and financial resources in comparison with her husband.We also observe the situation where the woman’s share in the house-hold tasks is higher than that of the husband’s.

First, we will take a look at the parameter estimates of the controlvariables. After the economic independence model, indicators were in-troduced in the logit-model. The duration of marriage stays significantwith a probability less than 0.0001. Also, the region variable has a sig-nificant negative coefficient (p < 0.05). Concerning the number ofevents, we notice that it lowers to 120, due to missings.

Observing the added parameters, we instantly notice that none of theeconomic independence indicators is highly significant. It immediatelydraws the attention that only the variable relating to the household taskdivision is significant (p < 0.5); when a wife devotes more time, takingcare of the household tasks in comparison with her husband the divorcerisk increases. Taking a glance at the hazard ratio (not shown in the ta-ble), we see that the divorce risk for these couples increases, with 46.5%in comparison with couples where men take care of the majority of thehousehold tasks or where the tasks are divided more equally.

Looking at the four hypotheses (H1a, H1b, H1c, H1d) formulated tosupport the economic independence model, we have to conclude thatour empirical findings reject the household tasks division hypothesis


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(H1d) of the independence framework. Whereas the economic inde-pendence model expects a negative correlation in cases where womentake care of most of the household tasks, our model shows a positiveone.

Equal Dependence Model

Taking a glance at the coefficients of the control variables in the equaldependence model, we notice once more that most effects are nonsigni-ficant, with the exception of duration of marriage (p < 0.0001), age atmarriage (p < 0.05), and unequal professional status (p = 0.04). The latteris constructed by taking the sum of two variables, namely the variable“the husband works and the wife doesn’t” and the variable “the wifeworks and the husband doesn’t.” The negative effect of duration of mar-riage is not surprising, and consistent with earlier research (Table 2).


TABLE 1. Economic Independence Model

Control Variables Model Parameters

Gender �0.16 Likelihood Ratio 151.79

Age at marriage �0.01 Prob. LR 0.0001

Age at marriage square �0.00 N 3027

Duration of marriage �0.14*** N-Events 120

Duration of marriage square 0.00 R² 0.10

Premarital Cohabitation

(Ref = no) �0.11

Children �0.25

(Ref = less than three children)

Nationality �0.09

(Ref = different nationality)

Region �0.47**

Economic independencevariables

Husband works, wife doesn't �0.18

Wife ’s education < Husband �0.05

Household tasks Wife > Husband �0.44*

Income Wife < Husband �0.19

*p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

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At first sight, none of the equal dependence indicators are significant.However, when removing duration of marriage and duration of marriagesquared, we notice that different income level becomes highly signifi-cant (p < 0.001) with a positive sign. Apparently, this variable is closelyrelated to duration of marriage. Also, when lifting the variable: “un-equal financial resources” out of the model, we notice a highly, positivesignificant effect of “unequal work statuses.”

We conclude that the direction of the effect falsifies hypothesis H2a;the divorce risk for partners with unequal professional statuses is 49.5%higher in comparison with partners sharing an equal professional status.Second hypothesis H2b is also falsified because of its positive signwhen removing the unequal professional status indicator.

The effects of the variables consisting of the differences betweenpartners regarding the educational and the household task participation,apparently, are not significant and could be put down to coincidence. In-deed, the remaining hypotheses concerning these resources, namelyH2b, H2c, and H2d, could not be supported.


TABLE 2. Equal Dependence Model



Age at marriage �0.03 Prob. LR <0.0001


Duration of marriage �0.15*** N 120


Premarital Cohabitation (Ref = no) �0.08

Children

(Ref = less than three children) �0.28

Nationality

(Ref = different nationality) 0.07

Region �0.4*

Equal dependence variables

Unequal work status 0.35

Unequal educational level �0.13

Unequal share household tasks 0.33

Unequal income level 0.07

*p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001

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Role Collaboration Model

The fourth model renders the effect of collaboration between bothmembers of the dyad concerning resources. Including the indicators ofthe collaboration model, the control variables show the same evolutionas stated above. The effect of duration of marriage stays significant (p <0.0001), but the coefficients of the other control covariates are not.

The variables included to test the role collaboration model are con-structed by reversing the variables “unequal professional status,” “unequalfinancial resources” and “unequal educational attainment.” Because of thesimilarity between these variables and the variables of the equal depend-ence model, the role collaboration model shows the same evolution incomparison with the latter, but with an opposite sign.

Like the model above, we only see insignificant effects (Table 3).Lifting the variable duration of marriage out of the model, we see a sig-nificant effect of equal income level, which at its turn influences equalwork status.


TABLE 3. Role Collaboration Model



Age at marriage �0.03 Prob. LR < 0.0001




Premarital Cohabitation �0.08

(Ref = no)

Children �0.28

(Ref= less than three children)

Nationality 0.07


Region �0.40*

Role collaboration variables

Equal work status �0.35

Equal educational status 0.13

Equal share household tasks �0.33

Equal Income �0.07

*p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

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The above findings make us support the equal professional status hy-pothesis (H3a). When both wife and husband are employed or unem-ployed, the divorce risk decreases. The influence of equal financialresources is unequivocal because it runs indirectly through “equal pro-fessional status.” These conclusions contradict the specialization argu-ment of Becker (1977) and support Oppenheimer’s (1997) notion of afamily as a collaborative household.

Economic Partnership Model

The fifth and final model is the one that represents the economic part-nership perspective. Again, duration of marriage (p < 0.001) seems tohave a significant effect on the risk of marriage dissolution, accompa-nied with the effect of the couple-level variable “both partners have ajob” (p = 0.05). The beta (� = –0.37) of this variable shows the relativestrength of the effect and supports hypothesis H4a, stating the divorcerisk decreases when both spouses work; the hazard ratio tells us the riskof divorce is 64% higher for nonworking spouses in comparison withspouses who both work. Other variables that attract attention, despitetheir nonsignificance, are “partners share an equal household task par-ticipation” and “high household income” (Table 4). The effects of thesevariables are relatively strong.

When removing “both partners have a job” (not shown in the table),the effect of “high household income” becomes significant (p. = 0.01)and stronger (� = –0.44). This indicates that the effect is related by thevariable “when both spouses have a job.” The same effect can be ob-served when removing “both partners have a job” together with “highhousehold income” (not shown in the table). In that case, the beta of“partners share an equal household task participation” increases upto –0.45, and the effect of the variable becomes significant (p = 0.05).Apparently, the effect the household-task variable is being mediated bythe income of the household.

DISCUSSION

The main intention of this article is to scrutinize in which way theresources of both members of the dyad influence the divorce risk. Thetheoretical framework of Rogers lends itself to explore this topic. How-ever, whereas Rogers (2004) focuses only on the influence of the rela-tive level of financial resources, we expand the radius of her framework


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to the way the educational, professional, and financial resources areshared by the spouses and the way the division of the household tasks isstructured. We distinguish the economic independence, the equal de-pendence, the role collaboration and the economic partnership frame-work.

At first glimpse, we see that all models show a significant fit, but theR²’s are low, indicating that only a small part of the total variance in di-vorce risk could be explained by our models. However, this is largelydue to the small amount of events, as we find that many parameter esti-mates correspond to previous findings, in size as well as in sign.

Taking a closer look at our results, we notice that especially the indi-cators of the economic independence and the equal dependence per-spectives show a positive risk for marriage dissolution. First, we foundthat when the wife is responsible for more household tasks than the hus-band is, the divorce risk increases. This means that when the wife is the


TABLE 4. Economic Partnership Model



Age at marriage �0.12 Prob. LR <0.0001

Age at marriage square -0.00 N 3027



Premarital cohabitation �0.25

(Ref = no)

Children �0.31

(Ref = less than three children)

Nationality 0.04


Region �0.21*

Economic partnership variables

Both partners have a job �0.38*

Both partners have high education 0.01

Equal share household tasks �0.38

Both partners have high household income

( Ref = < 2500 ) �0.35

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001

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main provider of non-market tasks, a high risk for union dissolution isobserved. However, we have to comment that our data set only reflectsthe subjective opinion about a respondent’s share in the household tasks(De Bruyn, 1997). In this way, we argue that the positive effect must beinterpreted as follows: When the wife feels injustice about the way thehousehold tasks are divided, the divorce risk increases. In a way, thisfinding is consistent with earlier research from Greenstein (1995) andKalmijn (2004) who show that women oriented towards an equal divi-sion of household tasks–more than women with more traditional val-ues–show a high divorce proneness when they feel that they are moreresponsible for the household tasks than their husbands.

Secondly, the divorce proneness that results from an equal depend-ence situation is derived from the fact that when both spouses have un-equal professional statuses and earn an unequal amount of money, therisk for marriage dissolution increases. These effects contradict find-ings from Nock (1995) and Ono (1998) who assert that when depend-ency between man and woman occurs in either direction, the marriagestabilizes.

A negative divorce risk is observed in the role collaboration and theeconomic partnership model. The collaboration perspective emphasizesthat when couples have comparable professional statuses, the divorcerisk lowers. We also found that the effect of equal income resources isclosely related to that of equal professional status. This means that apartfrom the amount of the wages, the divorce risk decreases when bothpartners earn an equal amount.

The model with the most explanatory power is the economic partner-ship model. When both spouses have jobs and when the mutually sharedhousehold income exceeds € 2500, the risk for marriage dissolution de-creases. Comparing the economic partnership with the role collabora-tion, we see that without controlling for “both partners earn a highincome” and “both partners work,” “both spouses share the householdtasks” reaches a significant effect. It seems that especially in a dualearner structure, the sharing of the household tasks has a stabilizing ef-fect on the marriage. Indeed, in a society where dual earnings are be-coming more and more common, and serve as a barrier against povertyrisk (van Dongen, 1996), it is likely that eventually having two earningswill be a protective factor in marriage (hence the lower risk of higher in-come categories). However, this will only be satisfactory in marriageswith an equal task division in the household as well. Studies show thatcouples with a more egalitarian-based resource distribution are charac-


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terized by an equal way of decision-making (Bracke, 1997), and will di-vide the household tasks in an equal way.

These findings contradict notions of Parsons (1956), Pleck (1977),and Crouch (1999) who view the family as a system where the differ-ence in responsibilities and abilities are gender-based. In the line of thisparadigm, Becker (1981) states that when both spouses specialize indifferent task spheres, the divorce risk decreases. Apparently, the no-tion of a fixed role pattern of the husband working outdoors and the wifetaking care of household tasks is rejected as we find evidence to defendthe importance of the role collaboration and the economic partnershipframework. In this respect, we subscribe to Oppenheimer’s view thatthe future lies with collaborative households. The effects we found inthis article indicate that whereas earlier role patterns of husband andwife were fixed and well defined, nowadays these boundaries becomemore and more flux and transparent.

Naturally, we are aware of the fact that it’s a far leap from our modelsto this kind of conclusion. It would take more sophisticated models tooperationalize such a hypothesis. Therefore, employment should beelaborated, including dimensions of the time spent at work and socio-economic status of employment. In general, variables that are op-erationalized more accurately on a relative couple level, and used inlarger, more representative datasets could provide us more informationabout the influence of different resources on the risk of marriagedissolution.

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Marriage and divorce in Belgium. The influence of professional, educational and financial resources...

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