Decision-Making Context and the Risk of Marital Dissolution

Rebecca Dunning, Duke University

The empirical literature on the determinants of divorce emphasizes individual and couple variables, such as income, employment, education, age at marriage, presence of children and family background. In contrast to the literature on the marriage, relatively little research considers the ways in which the social-structural environment affects marital dissolution. We argue that a contextual view provides a more complete picture of the determinants of divorce. In this paper, we assess the effects of several contextual variables on the risk of marital dissolution. Specifically, we examine three factors: the cost of homeownership, opportunities for work, and the availability of alternative partners. We use data drawn from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics merged with data characterizing the county of residence of sample members. We examine the impact of these contextual variables, the ways in which they interact with gender and race/ethnicity, and whether or not the effects have changed over time.