Does Divorce Risk Depend on Spouses' Relative Income? A Register-Based Study of First Marriages in Sweden in 1981-1998

Guiping Liu, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Andres Vikat, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

A frequently presented explanation to the macro-level relationship between increasing female labor-force participation and increasing divorce rates has been the so-called ‘independence effect’: if the wife earns more than her husband she gains less from marriage. It has also been argued that in a modern society with more egalitarian gender attitudes this effect may have become less important. We used a large register data set and intensity regression models to test the 'independence effect' in Sweden, a country where egalitarian gender views dominate, and where female labor-force participation and divorce rates are high. We found quite strong support to the ‘independence effect’: there was a positive linear relationship between the share of wife’s income and divorce risk. We also found that the higher the total income of the couple the lower their divorce risk, but this relationship appeared less strongly.