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Marriage Breakdown in Australia: Social Correlates, Gender and Initiator Status

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Marriage Breakdown in Australia: Social Correlates, Gender and Initiator Status Social Policy Research Paper No. 35 Marriage breakdown in Australia: social correlates, gender and initiator status Dr Belinda Hewitt School of Social Science The University of Queensland Improving the lives of Australians © Commonwealth of Australia 2008 ISSN 1833-4369 ISBN 978-19211380-01-3 This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth available from the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney-General’s Department. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney-General’s Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton, ACT 2600 or posted at http://www.ag.gov.au/cca. The opinions, comments and/or analysis expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs or the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), and cannot be taken in any way as expressions of Government policy. Refereed publication Submissions to the department’s Social Policy Research Paper series are subject to a blind peer review. Acknowledgements This paper is based on a PhD thesis, supervised by Professor Janeen Baxter from the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland and Professor Mark Western from the University of Queensland Social Research Centre. Professor Baxter and Professor Western participated in the development of ideas in the early phases of the project during meetings and by giving written feedback on drafts. Their contributions were greatest in the co-authored papers relating to sections 4 and 5. While any mistakes are mine, their insights and input have improved the quality of this thesis far beyond what I could have achieved on my own. The data used for this research come from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, which is funded by FaHCSIA and conducted by the Melbourne Institute for Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. The research findings are the product of the researchers and the views expressed should not be attributed to FaHCSIA or the Melbourne Institute. This research was supported by funding from an Australian Research Council linkage grant (LP0454996) between FaHCSIA and the School of Social Science, University of Queensland. For more information Research Publications Unit Research and Analysis Branch Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Box 7576 Canberra Business Centre ACT 2610 Phone: (02) 6244 5458 Fax: (02) 6244 6589 Email: [email protected] CONTENTS Contents Executive summary v 1 Marriage breakdown in Australia 1 1.1 The current marriage and divorce policy climate 1 1.2 Previous Australian divorce research and the contributions of this project 2 2 Social characteristics associated with marriage breakdown 5 2.1 Temporal and family background 5 2.2 Relationship and fertility factors 6 2.3 Attitudinal factors 8 2.4 Socioeconomic factors 9 2.5 The importance of gender in marriage, family life and marriage breakdown 10 2.6 Who initiates separation? 11 3 Data and methods 13 3.1 Data 13 3.2 The analytic sample 13 3.3 Variables 14 3.4 Analytic approach 17 4 Marriage breakdown in Australia 19 4.1 Survival and hazard estimates of marriage breakdown 19 4.2 Social factors associated with marriage breakdown 20 4.3 Summary 24 5 Who initiates separation? 25 5.1 Reports of which spouse initiated separation 25 5.2 Hazard estimates of which spouse initiated separation 25 5.3 Social correlates of which spouse initiates separation 26 5.4 Summary 31 6 Conclusions 33 6.1 Social factors are important for understanding marriage breakdown 33 6.2 Women are more likely to initiate separation than men 33 6.3 Gender and initiator status 34 6.4 Policy discussion 35 Appendix A: Likelihood ratio tests comparing model in Table 3 with models excluding each of the covariates 37 Appendix B: Gender interactions for discrete time event history model presented in Table 3 39 Appendix C: Social characteristics interacted with gender by reports of who initiated separation (supplementing tables 5, 6 and 7) 43 Endnotes 47 References 49 iii Marriage breakdown IN Australia: SOCIAL correlates, GENDER AND initiator statuS List of tables Table 1: Distribution of separated and divorced in analytic sample 14 Table 2: Description of covariates, by sex 16 Table 3: Discrete time event history model predicting the risk of marriage breakdown as a function of various social characteristics(a) for men and women 21 Table 4: Initiator status of separation for separated and divorced men and women 25 Table 5: Discrete time event history models with competing risks of women’s reports of who initiated separation relative to still married by social characteristics 27 Table 6: Discrete time event history models with competing risks of men’s reports of who initiated separation relative to still married by social characteristics 29 Table 7: Competing risks model, contrasting wife-initiated separation by selected social characteristics for women and men 30 Appendix tables Table A1: Likelihood ratio tests comparing model in Table 3 with models excluding each of the covariates 37 Table B1: Gender interactions for discrete time event history model presented in Table 3 39 Table C1: Social characteristics interacted with gender by reports of who initiated separation 44 List of Figures Figure 1: Survival estimates of marriage breakdown for analytic sample, by sex 19 Figure 2: Hazard rate of marriage breakdown by duration of marriage in analytic sample, by sex 20 Figure 3: Hazard rates of marriage breakdown and men’s and women’s reports of who initiated separation 26 iv Social Policy Research Paper No. 35 ExECutivE SuMMARy Executive summary This paper presents the main findings of an Australian Research Council linkage project with the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) and the University of Queensland. One of the main aims of the project was to obtain a better understanding of marriage breakdown in the Australian context, with a particular focus on gender differences in the social correlates of marriage breakdown. In this paper I present some of the key findings of that project. The project makes two main contributions to previous research into marriage breakdown in Australia: first, it examines gender differences in the social determinants of marriage breakdown in Australia; and second, previous research is extended by examining whether there are gender differences in the decision to separate, taking into account social characteristics. A large body of literature identifies a range of social characteristics—including temporal and family background factors, relationship and fertility histories, attitudes and beliefs, and socioeconomic position—that are associated with marriage breakdown. Understanding how these factors are differently associated with marriage breakdown for men and women provides a better understanding of why some marriages break down and others remain intact. In this paper I employ two different approaches to examining gender differences in the social determinants of marriage breakdown. First, I examine gender differences in the associations between social characteristics and marriage breakdown. Second, I examine gender differences in the associations between social characteristics and which spouse initiated separation. The analysis uses retrospective data from all persons who were currently or had been previously married at Wave 1 of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey (2001). The study is limited to first marriages and excludes the marriages of migrants in the sample that had ended prior to their migration to Australia. The final analytic sample consists of 8,993 first marriages: 4,110 men and 4,883 women. The findings can be grouped into three main themes. Social characteristics are important for understanding marriage breakdown ª Men and women in older birth cohorts are less likely to divorce than those in younger cohorts. ª In Australia, migrant women from non–English speaking backgrounds have a lower risk of marriage breakdown than Australian-born women. Migrant men from English-speaking backgrounds have a lower risk of marriage breakdown than Australian-born men. Migrant women from English-speaking backgrounds have a greater risk of marriage breakdown than migrant men from English-speaking backgrounds. ª Having divorced parents, living together before marriage, having children before marriage or in the first year of marriage and marrying young all increase the risk of marriage breakdown. For women, young age at marriage was associated with a greater increase in the risk of marriage breakdown compared to men. ª Higher levels of religiosity and having children in marriage reduce the risk of marriage breakdown. ª Higher levels of education increase the risk of marriage breakdown for women, while in contrast, higher levels of education decrease the risk of marriage breakdown for men. Women are more likely to initiate separation than men ª Thirty per cent of separations were initiated jointly with 70 per cent of separations initiated unilaterally by either the husband or wife. Of these unilateral separations, 69 per cent were wife initiated and 31 per cent were husband initiated. Gender differences in the decision to separate or remain married ª Women are more likely to initiate separation than comparable men when they migrate from English-speaking countries, when they marry young and when they have higher levels of education. v Marriage breakdown IN Australia: SOCIAL correlates, GENDER AND initiator statuS ª Men with higher levels of attachment to religion are less likely to initiate separation than comparable women. ª The main gender difference observed is that, according to women’s reports, very few women’s social characteristics are associated with husbands initiating separation.
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