Divorce amongst Working Women - Research Paper Example

A Study of Causes of Divorce amongst Working Women Econ 690 Seungho Choo The incidence of women joining the labor force has risen over the years. As such these women are torn between balancing their domestic and professional life. Various studies have established the link between working women and an increased incidence of the rate of divorce. There may be numerous reasons, within a marriage, which may lead to a divorce. This paper seeks to analyze if there is any correlation between earnings of working women and divorce rates. The study has been done with the premise that working women who tend to earn the same or more income than their husbands will be less tolerant to low-quality marriage and, therefore, the divorce rates in this section of the society would be higher. Various possible reasons for divorce like age, employment status, education level, wage and salary have been taken into consideration for the purpose of the study. Since the dependent variable in the study is dichotomous, probit regression has been used. The odds ratio has been calculated and analyzed for each of the stated variables. The present study has established that while wage and salary do not affect the rate of dissolution of a marriage. It has also revealed that the level of education has a bearing on the divorce rate. Introduction Since time immemorial, the man of the house has been considered as the bread earner for the family while the woman has been assigned the task of managing the household chores. However, over the years there has been a definite rise in the number of women constituting the country’s labor force. There are two schools of thought women’s participation in the workforce. While one view, backed by empirical studies, suggests that this increased participation of women in workforce has led to increase in divorce rates, the other school of thought opines that there is no material impact on divorce rates by such participation. People who subscribe to the latter view contend that women adjust their working hours and balance their personal and professional lives to avoid incidence of divorce. Hypothesis The debate rages as various studies establish varied findings. Within the institution of marriage, there could be umpteen factors that could impel divorce. The purpose of this study is to specifically find if there is any correlation between earnings of working women and divorce rates. The study aims to check if working women who have an income equivalent or more than their husbands’ tend to become so broadminded that they shun a low-quality marriage. Thus, the divorce rates in this section would be higher. The null hypothesis of this study is that there income levels of women does not make any difference in divorce rates. Literature Review The research on the women’s labor participation and the increasing divorce rates has put forth mixed results. There is empirical evidence that suggests that once a woman leaves the threshold of the house and ventures out to work, it reduces the efficiency on the household front. At the same time, her employment bestows on her financial independence (Becker 1981). This study established that if the woman felt that the time spent by her at home was practically of no value, she would go in for a job. Becker, in his study, compared the age and wage rate profiles of men and women and carried out a life-cycle deviation in the value of time for both genders. The output was compared with an age-household-productivity profile for non working women. The author established that, at some point of time, the wage rates exceed the household’s marginal productivity. Bremmer and Kesselring (2004) used time-series techniques and vector autoregressive system to examine the correlation between divorce, women labor force participation, birth rate and income. Data pertaining to the 1960s revealed that birth rate had reduced to half and at the same time, the income had risen by 150 percent. This study concluded that while women’s labor force participation increases their financial independence, it also increases the likelihood of divorce. The primary cause of this high divorce rate was the additional burden that accrues to a household when the lady of the house is working. Jalovaara (2003) establishes that if the husband is earning a fairly high salary, the chances of divorce reduce. On the other hand, if the wifes income exceeded the husbands income, the chances of divorce increase manifold. John H. Johnson (2004) examined data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to analyze the association between the women’s work hours and divorce rate. The study established that if women had long work hours, the rate of divorce increases. In case of a marriage of low quality, there was a high positive correlation between women’s employment and rate of divorce. An increase in the labor-force participation by women can lower the costs associated with extramarital search and can lead to rise in divorce rates (McKinnish 2004). Bedard et al. (2005) put forth the opinion that it is extremely difficult to establish the cause-to-effect relationship between divorce rates and female economic status. The authors aver that factors that increase martial instability also have the potency to favorably impact the economic status as well as labor market outcomes of women. Theoretical Argument The chances of a working woman, who is earning an amount equivalent or in excess of her husband’s income, getting divorced is higher than her counterpart who is earning less amount than her spouse or not working at all. There are various plausible causes for this connection between working women and divorce rates. Women who aspire to be financially independent join the labor force. The demands of the present day corporate world force them to spend long hours in office. A career woman has to invest a lot of time in office in order to climb up the corporate ladder. Being employed and having long working hours tend to serve as the perfect recipe for divorce. The quantum of time spent in office by a career woman would provide valuable insights into one of the most plausible reasons, long working hours, for divorce. This link is also likely to enable us correctly answer the question: Are career women more likely to get divorced than non-career women? It is understandable that a woman who spends long hours in office has little quality time for the family. Such women may be financially independent, have an enhanced self-esteem and increased social-psychological independence, but they have paucity of time for the domestic affairs. Opting for a divorce is likely to become easier for such women vis-à-vis their non-career counterparts for the simple reason that they are financially independent. The career women are well-educated, informed, and ambitious. It is also said that these women are less likely to raise children. All these characteristics enable the career women to walk out of a marriage easily if she is not satisfied. The relationship between working women and divorce rates is not simple. In fact, this relationship is multifaceted which makes it contentious. The underlying assumptions behind the relationship can be traced to economic theory. If one delves deep, one can identify elements of common sense in it. Conventionally, men have been termed as the “market” in economic theory as they assume the role of the bread earner for the family. On the other end of the spectrum, women have been termed as the “non-market” as they are responsible for managing the house including raising children. Even if there are no watertight compartments or roles are reversed, the entire work has still to be done by both spouses collectively. Experts are of the opinion that when the woman of the house is also working, the element of labor specialization in a marriage dwindles. Invariably, in such cases, the entire work does not get accomplished leading to dissatisfaction in a marriage. A contentious study published in the United States in 2006 revealed that the average American wife was more contended if the husband brought in 68 percent or more of the total family income. This feeling of contentment and happiness was witnessed in women who held strong feminist views and insisted that women worked and household tasks be split. The authors of the study opine that affluent and successful husbands are more flexible and more open. Such husbands tend to give their wives leeway to make choices about work and family. It has also been found that women who have long working hours do not get sufficient time to keep an eye on their husband’s health. This, in turn, leads to a general deterioration in the husband’s health over time. Empirical Model For the purpose of present study, the probit model has been used as the dependent or the response variable which is dichotomous in nature; i.e. it can take either 1 or 0 as value. A married woman can either be divorced or not. Therefore, the dependent variable, divorce status, is a dummy variable. In the present study, the dependent variable is equal to 1 for women who earn more than their spouse and get divorced. Where, Divorce = Women earning more than spouse and getting divorced. = Wage and salary income. Emp = Employment status (employed) Educ = Education level Data Description An observation for the dependent variable MS is the marital status of female who earn more than spouse. The key independent variable is, is wage and salary income in a given year. It is to test whether the data support the notion that wage and salary affect divorce or not. Finally Emp is Employment status. The independent variables in the study include wage and salary income, employment status and education level. The study will attempt to gauge if the income of the husband has a positive effect on the rate of divorce. For the purpose of the study, data of the women who got divorced in the United States in the year 2010 has been analyzed. The results of the regression analysis will enable me test the notion that education level affects divorce rate or not. Similarly, it can be gauged whether income rate has a bearing on divorce rate or not. If the null hypothesis of the study is rejected, it would support the notion that career women who earn more than her husband tend to have an enhanced probability of getting divorced. The control variables in the study include age and sex. Race and region could be the other control variables that can be used. The odds ratio is the most important measure of the effect size in logit regression. The odds ratio estimates an increase or decrease of the expected possibilities of association to a particular group; group of divorced women or otherwise as it pertains to the present study. Odd ratios depict the odds that the dependent variable=1 when the independent variable increases by 1 unit. Thus, if the odds ratio is greater than 1, there is an increased probability that the women would get divorced. On the contrary, if the odds ratio is less than 1, the probability that the women would get divorced is diminished. Discussion of Empirical Results Table 1: Dependent Variable: Divorced Model1: Dependent variables=1 Odds Ratio Sex female 1.3965 Employment Status employed 1.1941 Education Less high school 0.9854 High school 1.1437 College 0.7962 Master 0.6748 Age 1.0073 Wage and salary 0.9999 Family total income 1 Number of observation LR chi2(9) 1532591 39851.19 Prob>chi2 0.0000 Pseudo R2 0.0283 Table 1 depicts the regression results of the empirical model employed in the study. Dummy variables for four education levels viz; less than high school, high school, college and master have been created as seen in the table. The results of the study suggest that women who have done college and masters have a lesser probability of getting divorced as the odds ratio in these categories are .7962 and .6748 respectively. The findings also reveal that if women are in the ‘less than high school’ category (Odds ratio .9854), it has little bearing on the rate of divorce. However, if women are only ‘high school’ the chances of divorce increase as the odds ratio is 1.1437. On an overall basis, it can safely be said that the level of education has a material impact on the rate of divorce. The study has established that higher the level of education, the lesser the chances of divorce. The odds ratio for Wage and salary is .9999 which is very close to 1. Thus it can be concluded that wage and salary does not have a significant impact on the divorce rate. In the present study, 1532591 observations have been used for which all of the response and predictor variables are available. 39851.19, the LR chi2(9), or the likelihood ratio chi-square test, reveals that at least one of the predictors’ regression coefficient is not equal to zero. Prob>chi2 is the likelihood of achieving the chi-square statistic LR chi2(9) if, in reality, there has been no impact of the predictor variables. In the present study, Pseudo R2 and R2 are on same scale of 0 to 1. Conclusion In any marriage, the man is expected to earn and bring in income while the onus of making the home a comfortable place to live in rests on the woman’s shoulders. There is a popular impression that a career woman who earns an amount equivalent to or in excess of her husbands’ income is more likely to walk out of a marriage for the simple reason that she is financially independent. Women earning a decent amount of steady income feel secure about their future well being and therefore would opt for a divorce in case they are not happy in a marriage. The present study has established that the level of education does have a bearing on divorcement. On the other hand, the study also concludes that wage and salary do not affect the rate of dissolution of a marriage. Thus, the null hypothesis has been accepted. The findings of the present study do not corroborate with earlier studies that suggest that income levels and divorce rates are linked. Reference list Bedard, Kelly, and Olivier Deschenes. 2005. Sex preferences, marital dissolution and the economic status of women. The Journal of human resources 40, (2): 411-434, http://search.proquest.com/docview/202697303? (accessed May 16, 2012). Bremmer, Dale, and Randy Kesselring. "Divorce and Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence from Times-Series Data and Cointegration." Atlantic Economic Journal 32, no. 3 (September 2004): 175-190. Cleaver, Joanne. 1998. When partners divorce. Working Woman., http://search.proquest.com/docview/214500568? [accessed May 9, 2012]. Jalovaara, Marika. 2003. The joint effects of marriage partners socioeconomic positions on the risk of divorce. Demography 40, (1): 67-81, http://search.proquest.com/docview/220175822? ]accessed May 9, 2012]. Johnson, John H., IV. 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