Determinants of Husband-Initiated and Wife-Initiated Divorces

SES-0241893保拉英格兰西北大学该项目旨在通过研究妻子和丈夫发起离婚的决定因素，扩大我们对夫妻离婚或在一起的原因的理解。 本研究创新性地将离婚分为由妻子提出离婚还是由丈夫提出离婚。提出离婚的人被定义为报告说更想离婚的前配偶。 这项研究分析了妇女离开男子和男子离开妇女的不同决定因素。 以前的研究没有区分丈夫离开妻子和妻子离开丈夫的原因。这项研究利用了全国家庭和住户调查的所有三个阶段;第三阶段将于2003年初完成。 PI借鉴了社会学中的性别理论和交换理论，以及经济学中的讨价还价模型。 这项研究的一个目标是评估婚姻之外有更好的选择是否会使伴侣更容易提出离婚，特别是如果她/他在婚姻中不幸福的话。 较高的收入（这有助于养活自己、孩子，可能还有一个新的家庭）会影响婚姻之外的选择。 健康状况较好（例如没有身体或精神残疾）可能会改善一个人独立生活的能力和婚姻市场的前景，从而更有可能提出离婚。 该项目还评估从配偶那里获得更多利益的伴侣是否不太可能提出离婚。 这些福利包括配偶的收入、家务劳动、情感支持、被认为是公平的待遇以及在完整的家庭中抚养子女的能力。 还评估了性别差异，例如，如果存在老龄化的双重标准，那么年龄会使女性的婚外市场选择比男性更恶化，女性主动离婚的倾向会比男性更随年龄下降。 这项研究还考察了那些更愿意无条件维持婚姻的人是否不太可能提出离婚。 调查员试图了解为什么丈夫和妻子都报告说妇女是大多数离婚的始作俑者，考虑到僵化的男性性别脚本使妇女比男子更难将资源转化为讨价还价的能力这一假设。 竞争风险事件历史模型将被用来预测妻子或丈夫是否会主动离婚，每一个都与婚姻持续的选择有关。 这项研究将有助于家庭行为理论的发展，以及对不断变化的美国家庭的政策讨论

SES- 0241893 Paula England Northwestern University The project seeks to extend our understanding of why couples divorce or stay together by studying determinants of wives and husbands initiating divorces. The study is innovation in its approach of classifying divorces according to whether the wife or husband initiates the divorce. Who initiated the divorce is defined as the ex-spouse who reports to have wanted the divorce more. The study analyzes the distinct determinants of women leaving men and men leaving women. No previous research has distinguished between causes of husbands leaving wives and wives leaving husbands. The study uses all three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households; wave 3 becomes available in early 2003. The PI draws upon theories of gender and exchange theory in sociology, and bargaining models in economics. One goal of the study is to assess whether having better alternatives outside the marriage makes a partner more likely to initiate divorce, particularly if s/he is unhappy in the marriage. Having higher earnings (which facilitate support of oneself, one's children, and possibly a new family) affect alternatives outside the marriage. Better health (e.g. not having a physical or mental disability) may improve one's ability to live on one's own and prospects on the marriage market, and thus make initiation of divorce more likely. The project also assess whether a partner receiving more benefits from a spouse is less likely to initiate divorce. These benefits include income from the spouse's earnings, household work, emotional support, treatment perceived as fair, and the ability to rear children in an intact family. Gender differences are also assessed, for example, if there is a double standard of aging, then age will deteriorate women's outside marriage market alternatives more than men's, and women's inclination to initiate divorce will decline with age more than men's. The research also examines whether those with greater commitment to staying in marriage unconditionally are less likely to initiate divorce. The investigator seeks to understand why women are reported by both husbands and wives to be the initiators in a majority of divorces, considering the hypothesis that rigidity of male gender scripts makes it harder for women than men to convert resources to bargaining power. Competing-risk event-history models will be used to predict whether wives or husbands initiate divorce, each relative to the alternative of the marriage persisting. This research will contribute to the development of theories of family behavior, as well as to policy discussions of the changing American family