A divorce and marriage counseling session in Old School | Source: Dreamworks
Maintaining a long,
healthy relationship is
one of the biggest challenges people face in life. There are so many
factors that can affect the status of a marriage or relationship and so
many things that are simply out of a couple’s control that divorce has
become rather common. Though
divorce rates have been slowing down over the past several years, people are still doing what they can to avoid it — be it
marrying the right person, waiting until the right age, or deferring until financial security is solidified.
All of those things may help you avoid a divorce, but we now have
even more insight into what can make an otherwise strong union fracture.
And it has more to do with the economy than with Tinder profiles,
Facebook flirting, or too much time at the bar or in front of the Xbox.
According to
a study published in American Sociological Review,
the biggest factor leading to divorce is the husband’s job status.
Harvard researcher Alexandra Killewald crunched the numbers and found
that men who didn’t have jobs, or who had been out of work for a long
time had a statistically higher chance of getting divorced in any given
year, compared to those with stable careers.
Many couples fight about money, and that is often a leading factor in
divorce proceedings. But this study goes a little deeper and adds
another layer of complexity to those financial issues. Per Killewald’s
study, men without jobs increase their odds of divorce by roughly 30%.
Divorce and employment status
Unemployed businessman | Source: iStock
The research looks at data dating back 46 years to the 1970s and
found that for men who were not employed full-time, there was a 3.3%
chance they would get divorced in any given year. Compare that to men
who did have a full-time job during the same time period, and the
chances dropped to 2.5%. That’s what was found from looking at more than
6,300 couples.
“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,” the study says. “Expectations of wives’ homemaking
may have eroded, but the husband breadwinner norm persists.”
Those are a couple of other interesting details that the study
unearthed — that the full-time job status of the wife and the division
of household labor didn’t have a significant impact on divorce risk.
Instead, the real difference had to do with the husband’s job status.
“It is possible that husbands’ less than fulltime employment is
associated with marital disruption more strongly than wives’, not
because of gendered interpretations of lack of full-time employment, but
because husbands’ part-time employment or nonemployment is more likely
to be involuntary,” the study says. “Involuntary nonemployment may
negatively affect marriages more strongly than voluntary nonemployment.”
In other words, it’s not just being out of work; it’s being fired or laid off, and not being able to find a job.
Dodging divorce
Wedding rings | iStock
There are limitations to the study, as Killewald points out. It
didn’t include same-sex couples (marriage data hasn’t existed for very
long), and it didn’t include men who chose to become stay-at-home dads,
and let their wives be the household breadwinner. Read through the study
to get a full picture of Killewald’s other concerns. There is also
evidence out there
that division of labor in the household and a wife’s employment status
can play a bigger part in divorce than this study claims.
But what you really need to know is that there was a clear correlation with employment status and divorce rates.
What does this mean for you and your relationship? It might not mean
anything — each and every marriage and relationship is different. But
we’ve known for a long time that many marriages fail due to financial
problems, and the employment status of the husband clearly plays into
that.
And perhaps most importantly, there are innumerable other factors
that can lead to divorce that aren’t necessarily taken into account by
this study. Cultural differences, religion, children — a marriage can be
wrecked by any number of things, not merely the fact that someone loses
their job. But a connection exists, according to Killewald’s work, and
if you want to stay out of divorce court, you should first try to stay
out of the unemployment office.
Culled from Money & Career Cheat Sheet:
