Divorce News: Employment Of Husband A Big Factor For Couples Parting Ways

A husband's full-time employment has been linked on his risk of getting a divorce, a study from a researcher based at Harvard University has found. In marriages before 1975, the wives' share of housework linked to the odds of divorcing. But since 1975, the husband's employment status has been the factor associated with the risk of divorce.

Bloomberg reported that Harvard sociology professor Alexandra Killewald found that since the 1970s, husbands who had full-time employment had a 2.5 percent rate of getting a divorce. This is lower than the 3.3 percent rate of divorce for husbands without full-time employment.

Killewald examined data 1968 and 2013 data from the Panel Study Of Income Dynamics which is a continuing survey of American families conducted by the University of Michigan, according to a report from Live Science. Killewald studied a total of 6,300 different-sex couples aged between 18 and 55 who were in a first marriage.

Computer models to predict divorce risks were also part of Killewald's study. According to the report, the predictions took into account financial reasons and different factors that could influence a couples' marriage. In doing her study, Killewald sought "how the roles and responsibilities in marriage changed over time and influenced the chance of divorce" and compared marriages in 1974 and before to marriages in 1975 and after.

A sociologist who did not take part in the study emphasized gender roles in relation to the findings that the employment of husbands influenced divorce. "While women's roles have changed markedly over the past several decades, men's have not kept pace. In our culture to be a 'husband' still means being the breadwinner," said Pamela Smock, a professor at the University of Michigan, as per Health Day.

The study found no evidence that the economic independence of women can increase divorce rates in couples, despite earlier research reportedly suggesting this. Killewald's study on factors affecting divorce in American couples over the years was published in the American Sociological Review.