The Effects of Socio-Cultural and Labour Market Conditions on Marital Separation During the Early Democratic Period in Spain

Rene Houle, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

In this paper, we examine the socio-cultural conditions and labor market participation correlates of marital separation in transition Spain. The reason is that it has been clearly shown that these factors are much more strongly related to divorce in Spain and other Mediterranean countries than in other parts of the Western world. We focus our attention on differences between men and women and use some theoretical frameworks that explain divorce rates in industrialised countries. We especially include “modernisation” in aiming to explain divorce in Spain during its early period of integration in contemporary Europe. One feature of this work is that “modernisation” is captured not only on an individual but also on a contextual level. This dual approach is especially relevant in a country such as Spain, i.e. where regional heterogeneity in economic and socio-cultural spheres is large and the influence of the family and local community is still strong.