Abstract
We examined the role of couples’ division of labor in the risk of union dissolution among parents of young children in Chile. We looked at whether specialization in the labor market and domestic work predicts union dissolution, and whether these associations differ by parents’ marital status and mother’s education. Using panel data from the Chilean Encuesta Longitudinal de Primera Infancia (ELPI) 2010 and 2012 waves, we found that specialization in the division of labor is associated with a lower probability of union dissolution among parents of young children in Chile. Unlike prior evidence for the US and the Netherlands, specialization is stabilizing for both married and cohabiting couples. However, there are differences by mother’s education. On the one hand, among mothers with high school education or less, specialization in the division of labor is associated with a lower probability of divorce and separation. On the other hand, among mothers with at least some college education, specialization has no advantage over equality in generating more union stability. Our findings shed light on how the interaction of couple’s division of labor and socioeconomic disadvantage may create unequal economic prospects for women and their children following union dissolution.
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Data Availability
With the exception of the comuna (municipality) variable, ELPI is publicly available for download: http://observatorio.ministeriodesarrollosocial.gob.cl/elpi-primera-ronda (2010) and http://observatorio.ministeriodesarrollosocial.gob.cl/elpi-segunda-ronda (2012).
Code Availability
Data analysis files for replication are available upon request.
Notes
In this theoretical framework, power is defined as a structural capability and it is different from both the use of power and actual power (Lawler & Yoon, 1993).
Chilean Longitudinal Survey of Early Life.
To make these assignments, we first calculated the z-scores of mothers’ earnings among couples in which mothers earned and partners did not. Then we divided these z-scores by the magnitude of the minimum value of the z-scores such that the minimum of the adjusted z-score was -1. We then added the mean of the earnings ratio among couples where the mother earned more than the father (2.09), bringing up the minimum of the adjusted ratio to just above 1. This also resulted in a maximum of 5.8.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Daniel R. Meyer for valuable insight.
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This work was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (Grant #P2CHD073964) via a pilot grant awarded and administered by the Berkeley Population Center.
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Cuesta, L., Reynolds, S. Does Couples’ Division of Labor Influence Union Dissolution? Evidence from Parents of Young Children in Chile. J Fam Econ Iss 44, 584–601 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-022-09867-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-022-09867-8